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S.  PARKES  CADM 


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AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME 
AUTHOR 

WiLUAM  Owek:     a  Bioobapht 
Charles  Darwin  and  Other  Exolibh 

Thinkers 
The  Three  Rkligious  Leaders  of  Ox- 
ford AND  Their  Movements 


AMBASSADORS  OF 
GOD 


BY 

S.  PARKES  CADMAN 


Betti  pork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1921 

AU  righU  reserved 


COPYHIGHT,   1920, 

Bt  the  macmillan  company 

New  and  Cheaper  Edition,  Published,  1921 


The  Bible  text  used  in  this  volume  is  taken  from  the  American 
Standard  Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible,  copyrighted  1910,  Thomaa 
Nelaon  &  Sons,  and  is  used  by  permission. 


TO 

HENRY  C.   FOLGER,  D.Lrrr. 

WHOSE  REVERENT  SYMPATHY  FOR 
THE  FORMS  OF  A  TRUE  WORSHIP 
HAS  ENRICHED  THE  PRAISE  OF 
THE  SANCTUARY,  THIS  VOLUME 
IS    RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED  BY 

THE  AUTHOR 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/ambassadorsofgod()Ocadmiala 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  of  this  book  were  originally  prepared  as  lec- 
tures to  be  delivered  upon  the  Shepard  and  Carew  foundations 
at  Bangor  and  Hartford  Theological  Seminaries.  They  have 
since  been  delivered  at  Drew  Theological  Seminary,  Madison, 
New  Jersey,  and  before  several  ministerial  conferences.  I  am 
greatly  indebted  to  the  Rev.  John  L.  Belford,  D.D.,  for  the 
loan  of  volumes  upon  preaching  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
to  the  Rev.  Oscar  L,  Joseph  for  his  scholarly  suggestions,  and  to 
the  Rev.  A.  S.  Morris,  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Ross,  the  Rev.  David 
Loinaz,  and  Professor  Edgar  A.  Hall  for  their  valued  help  in 
preparing  the  manuscript  for  the  press. 

S.  P.  C. 

Lent,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I    The  Scriptural  Basis  for  Preaching  ....  3 

II    Prophets    and    Preachers    op    the    Christian 

Church 47 

III  The  Modern  Attitude  Toward  Preaching    .     .  95 

IV  Cross  Currents  Which  Affect  Preaching    .     .  129 

V    Present  Day  Intellectualism  and  Preaching   .  167 

VI    The  Nature  and  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Min- 
istry     203 

VII    Preaching  :  Its  Preparation  and  Practice    .     .  237 

VIII    Preaching:  Its  Preparation  and  Practice  (Con- 
tinued)       273 

IX    Preaching  and  Worship 311 

Bibliography 341 

Index 345 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  SCEIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING 


But  all  things  are  of  God,  ■who  reconciled  us  to  himself  through 
Christ,  and  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation;  to  wit, 
that  God  was  La  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  not 
reckoning  unto  them  their  trespasses,  and  having  committed  unto 
us  the  word  of  reconciliation. 

We  are  ambassadors  therefore  on  behalf  of  Christ,  as  though  God 
were  entreating  by  us:  we  beseech  you  on  behalf  of  Christ,  be  ye 
reconciled  to  God. 

II  Corinthians  v:  18-20. 

Therefore  let  us  also,  seeing  we  are  compassed  about  with  so  great 
a  cloud  of  witnesses,  lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth 
so  easily  beset  us,  and  let  us  run  with  patience  the  race  that  is  set 
before  us,  looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  perfecter  of  our  faith, 
who  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him  endured  the  cross,  despising 
shame,  and  hath  sat  down  at  the  right  hand  of  the  tlirone  of  God. 

Hebrews  xii:  1-2. 


AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING 

Varying  values  attached  to  preaching — Implications  of  the  term 
ambassadors  of  God — The  fundamental  sanction  of  preaching 
— Hebrew  prophets — The  Bible  and  modern  criticism — Main 
conceptions  of  the  Prophets — Their  influence  upon  civiliza- 
tion— The  Psalmists — Their  range  and  limitations — Permanent 
value  of  the  Old  Testament — Teaching  of  Jesus — The  Kingdom 
of  God — Christology  of  the  New  Testament — Apostolic  develop- 
ment of  doctrine. 

Statements  about  preaching  involve  nearly  everything 
under  the  sun  and  range  from  the  warmest  eulogy  to  censure 
of  an  equal  temperature.  The  streams  of  praise  and  dis- 
praise, stricture  and  defense  seldom  run  dry;  the  last  word 
seems  never  to  have  been  said.  Under  these  circumstances, 
il  ask  your  forbearance  during  my  discussion  of  an  all  im- 
portant theme  which  has  enlisted  many  able  exponents.  My 
only  justification  for  adding  to  their  superior  contributions 
of  advice  and  criticism  is  that  I  propose  to  confine  myself  as 
closely  as  possible  to  those  practical  evaluations  of  preaching 
which  have  been  derived  from  my  personal  experiences  as  a 
preacher.  It  is  fortunate  for  me  that  your  attainments  in 
theological  knowledge  permit  me  to  take  for  granted  much 
which  otherwise  would  require  explanation.  As  men  prede- 
termined and  in  training  for  the  ministry  of  the  Word,  you 
do  not  have  to  wait  upon  but  rather  to  weigh  what  I  have 
to  offer,  accepting  only  that  which  you  deem  applicable  to 
your  personal  necessities,  and  judging  it  in  the  light  of  the 

3 


4  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

learning  which  has  illuminated  the  Church  during  the  past 
few  decades.  Yet  notwithstanding  the  benefits  of  that  learn- 
ing we  have  arrived  at  no  finality  in  the  numerous  and  ex- 
cellent ideals  of  preaching  hitherto  presented.  Broadly 
speaking,  few  people  have  the  hardihood  to  deny  that  the 
Christian  pulpit  exerts  a  wide-spread  and  salutary  influence 
upon  the  race,  implanting  virtuous  character,  and  nourishing 
social  fidelity  and  religious  certitude.  But  it  does  not  enjoy 
the  very  great  advantage  of  universally  accepted  premises 
jon  which  to  build  a  scientific  theory  of  preaching,  and  these 
have  still  to  be  sought  in  the  tantalizing  twilight  of  dogmatic 
preferences  and  conflicting  precepts.  The  regenerative  quali- 
ties ascribed  to  preaching  by  those  authoritative  men  who 
esteem  it  as  the  chief  agency  for  upraising  and  purifying 
the  life  of  individuals  and  nations  are  disallowed  by  other 
prominent  leaders.  In  the  Roman;  Catholic,  the  Orthodox 
Greek,  the  Anglican  and  the  Reformed  Churches  an  affection- 
ate reverence  for  preaching  as  the  noblest  human  employment 
of  thought  and  language  is  found  side  by  side  with  its  moder- 
ated approval  or  candid  disparagement.  From  our  view- 
point as  sons  of  Puritanism,  the  evolution  which  produced 
the  prophet  and  later  the  preacher  was  essentially  a  divine 
ordination;  from  the  viewpoint  of  ultramontane  ecclesiastics 
that  evolution  represented  an  emphatically  different  process, 
in  which  the  priestly  caste  predominated.  Many  men  and 
women  of  a  secular  complexion  attribute  preaching  to  purely 
natural  causes  and  assign  it  a  lower  place  in  public  useful- 
ness than  Scripture  warrants  or  the  Church  can  concede. 
All  who  discuss  it  are  swayed  by  their  varying  temperaments 
and  prepossessions ;  and  their  conclusions  are  marked  by  con- 
sequent disparities  of  conviction.  You  wiU  further  observe 
that  prophetic  preaching,  to  which  you  should  constantly 
aspire,  lives  in  the  realm  of  imponderables,  and  endeavors  to 
realize  and  set  forth  the  abstract  ideals  of  that  realm. 
Throughout  the  ages  prophet  and  preacher  have  striven  to 
formulate  and  express  their  religious^  sentiments,  but  none 
has  ever  quite  succeeded  because  the  deep  things  of  God 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING       5 

are  unutterable.  The  apprehension  of  these  facts,  which  pre- 
cedes a  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  whole  matter,  makes 
you  less  impatient  with  types  of  preaching  remotest  from 
your  own,  and  impregnates  your  sermons  with  that  breadth 
for  which  there  is  no  adequate  substitute. 

What  then  are  the  implications  of  the  illustrious  title  AM- 
BASSADORS OF  GOD  bestowed  upon  your  calling  in  the 
second  Corinthian  letter  of  St.  Paul  ?  How  can  those  who  are 
thus  distinguished  by  one  who  stands  forever  foremost  in  the 
hierarchy  he  named,  best  represent  the  Creator  to  His  crea- 
tures? What  are  the  sanctions  of  Holy  Writ,  of  Christian 
history ;  what  the  indefeasible  obligations  of  the  Church  Cath- 
olic concerning  the  propagation  of  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the 
blessed  God?  These  and  kindred  queries  will  have  to  be  an- 
swered, if  not  now,  in  the  immediate  future,  not  only  in  their 
narrower  but  in  their  widest  associations;  in  their  bearing 
upon  prevalent  ideas,  upon  Protestant  relations  with  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  State,  upon  Christianity  and  its  functions  in 
the  world.  A  recent  complaint  that  later  theology  has  been 
extensively  occupied  with  providing  a  basis  in  Scripture  and 
philosophy  for  opinions  which  have  no  real  connection  with 
either  is  somewhat  reckless  in  its  generalization.  Nevertheless 
it  is  substantial  enough  to  admonish  you  that  the  outstanding 
truths  you  have  to  proclaim  are  few,  simple  and  experimental ; 
a  priceless  consolation  for  preachers  at  a  critical  juncture 
when  their  calling  shares  the  painful  exigencies  of  a  transi- 
tional period  in  which  changes  are  rife  and  paradoxes  so  nu- 
merous that  frequently  they  devour  one  another.  Those 
truths  and  the  governing  conceptions  of  their  diffusion  are 
found  in  the  Bible,  to  which  historic  continuity,  logical  con- 
sistency, present  chaotic  conditions  and  practical  policy  alike 
bid  us  appeal.  But  we  must  resort  to  its  jurisdiction  on  real, 
not  on  conventional  lines,  and  the  appeal  must  be  inspired  by 
that  passion  for  veracity  which  has  covered  the  Book  itself 
with  an  imperishable  splendor.  The  time  has  come  when  in- 
junctions about  homiletics  must  not  only  be  pious  but  free  from 
casuistry.     It  is  not  sufficient  to  tell  candidates  for  the  minis- 


6  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

try  that  they  have  to  be  genuine  servants  of  God,  regenerate 
in  life  and  blameless  of  character.  These  qualifications  are 
presupposed  in  every  case,  and  their  reiteration,  while  always 
vital,  is  by  no  means  the  only  consideration  involved.  An 
unbiased  and  instructed  pulpit  conscience  has  to  be  enlisted 
to  meet  the  ever-growing  demand  that  Christian  thinkers  and 
preachers  shall  make  a  final  choice  between  dogmatic  prepos- 
sessions about  the  Bible  and  such  an  actual  and  critical  knowl- 
edge of  its  organic  teachings  as  will  moralize  preaching  and 
strengthen  its  hold  upon  intelligent  society. 

In  your  response  to  this  demand  two  extremes  must  be 
avoided,  since  both  are  counterfeits  forged  at  the  opposite  ends 
of  error.  The  first  decries  the  religious  value  of  the  Bible  and 
especially  of  the  Old  Testament,  deeming  its  careful  examina- 
tion a  waste  of  energy;  the  second  idealizes  Scripture  at  the 
expense  of  truth.  Contemporary  preaching  is  seriously 
embarrassed  by  these  factional  attitudes.  Reaction  to  any 
objective,  however  stalwart  and  trustworthy,  is  liable  to  be 
singled  out  for  unqualified  condemnation  by  amateur  thinkers 
who  have  not  the  historic  spirit,  or  by  emotional  people  who 
spurn  the  experiences  on  which  wisdom  thrives.  It  is  possible, 
especially  in  preaching,  to  mistake  an  intellectual  virtue  for  a 
vice.  And  though  reaction  is  a  synonym  for  fatuous  ob- 
stinacy, it  may  also  mean  in  your  work  a  return  to  its  true 
and  lasting  form.  In  applying  this  assertion  to  Old  Testa- 
ment literature  I  am  persuaded  that  your  mastery  of  Hebrew 
prophecy  will  increase  your  breadth  of  view  and  sobriety  of 
discernment,  add  to  the  weight  and  influence  of  your  preach- 
ing, and  enable  you  more  justly  to  appraise  men  and  events. 
The  ephemeral  nature  and  lamentable  thinness  of  some  pulpit 
efforts  will  not  afflict  your  audiences,  provided  you  have  the 
good  sense  to  fall  back  upon  the  chosen  oracles  of  Judaism  and 
impart  a  degree  of  their  vivid  spirituality  to  what  you  have  to 
say.  In  an  atmosphere  thick  with  the  dust  of  controversy,  that 
preacher  best  serves  his  age  who  scales  the  heights  of  ancient 
prophecy  and  from  the  elevation  thus  attained  surveys  the 
troubled  warfare  of  life's  lower  levels.     For  the  seers  of  old 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING       7 

laid  emphasis  upon  social  justice,  upon  peace,  and  upon  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  of  which  they  not  only  had  transcendental 
visions  as  a  future  glory  but  which  they  also  conceived  as  that 
realization  of  equity,  compassion  and  unselfishness  which 
makes  for  man's  well-being  on  earth.  Ministers  who  ignore 
the  prophetic  witness  of  the  Bible  often  plow  the  sands; 
precedence,  precept,  prescription,  count  for  nothing  while  they 
are  engrossed  in  transient  affairs  and  contentious  issues. 
They  are  victims  of  the  speculations  which  they  happen  for 
the  moment  to  admire,  and  heed  all  too  eagerly  those  advo- 
cates, orthodox  or  heterodox,  who  act  and  speak  as  though 
they  dispensed  the  shields  which  fell  from  heaven.  The  dis- 
cerning student  does  not  yield  his  obedience  to  these  fading 
specters  of  the  religious  and  intellectual  realms,  but  to  those 
approved  souls  of  Israel's  history  whose  illuminated  testi- 
monies are  a  summary  of  the  holiest  faith,  and  whose  records 
are  among  the  highest  credentials  of  his  calling. 

The  equipment  you  require  is  provided  in  part  in  the 
prophets,  the  psalmists,  the  givers  of  the  law  and  the  heralds 
of  the  first  Dispensation.  But  if  you  wander  at  will,  seeking 
for  an  armor  of  your  own  which  you  insist  shall  protect  your 
personal  peculiarities  rather  than  Biblical  principles,  night 
will  close  in  upon  you  before  you  have  joined  your  forces  to 
the  fight.  As  I  view  the  situation,  you  need  not  hesitate  to 
reject  radical  speculations  invented  by  spiritual  Ishmaelites 
who  would  gleefully  cut  the  painter  and  send  the  boat  adrift. 

Despite  the  revolutionary  projects  which  agitate  the  Church, 
remain  steadfast  in  your  loyalty  to  the  venerable  verities  of 
Israel  which  can  never  be  deprived  of  their  supreme  signifi- 
cance. Beware  of  the  excessive  individualism  which  is  the  es- 
sence of  heathenism,  the  parent  of  theories  too  darkly  auda- 
cious to  be  trusted.  The  labyrinth  you  tread  has  but  one  clew : 
not  the  old  nor  the  new,  but  the  true  as  against  the  false.  This 
truth  the  prophets  habitually  phrased  as  "  the  word  of  the 
Lord, ' '  and  their  reverence  for  it  explains  their  preeminence. 
Upon  it  they  depended ;  upon  it  you  likewise  must  depend.  It 
diminishes  perplexities  and  dismisses  fears;  it  conducts  you 


8  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

into  the  open  spaces  where  the  horizons  lift,  the  magic  case- 
ments open,  and  you  gain  those  glimpses  of  the  largeness  of 
life,  cosmic  and  elemental,  the  vision  of  which  was  vouchsafed 
aforetime  to  the  seers  of  Israel.  You  may  recall  Plato's  dis- 
course upon  the  necessity  of  maintaining  with  a  commensurate 
diligence  what  we  believe  to  be  absolute  truth.  He  bespoke 
for  that  truth  the  "marvelous  vigilance"  which  is  the  first 
impulse  of  a  genuine  preacher's  mind.  The  conflicts  it  has 
waged  with  error  point  the  moral  of  all  human  tales  rjfthat  no 
matter  what  else  changes  the  realities  of  righteousness  are 
eternal.  JThese  realities  have  one  of  their  most  perfect  em- 
bodiments in  the  earlier  Scriptures,  which  emit  the  breath  of 
God  from  nearly  every  page.  What  novelty  they  acquire  is 
due  to  their  reiteration  through  successive  ages,  and  though 
your  reproduction  of  their  teaching  may  give  it  emphasis,  it 
cannot  give  it  originality.  No  interplay  of  ingenuity,  how- 
ever skillful,  no  protest  of  skepticism,  however  adroit,  has  dis- 
placed their  centrality.  They  are  not  necessary  because  they 
are  mandatory,  but  mandatory  because  they  are  necessary. 
The  prophetic  faith,  which  has  a  specific  relation  not  to  the 
Old  Testament  as  a  whole  but  to  its  highest  and  best  ideas,  is 
a  religion  which  in  its  deepest  essentials  is  closely  akin  to 
Christianity.  Its  benevolence  is  not  more  truly  clement  than 
its  austerity;  its  inhibitions  are  barriers  against  irreparable 
disaster;  its  "goodly  fellowship  of  the  prophets"  has  struck 
the  chords  of  that  infinite  harmony  which,  gathering  resonance 
with  the  centuries,  will  yet  blend  earth's  discords  into  a  per- 
fect peace.  To  these  Scriptures,  to  their  authors,  to  their 
pleadings  and  exhortations,  you  can  safely  render  heart-felt 
allegiance.  They  will  make  you  alert  to  every  duty  of  your 
vocation,  valiant  in  the  strife  which  that  duty  often  entails, 
and  heedless  of  its  apparently  adverse  consequences  to  your- 
self. Their  light  is  like  that  of  the  torch:  the  more  it  is 
shaken  the  brighter  it  shines. 

Having  taken  a  definite  stand  in  behalf  of  the  study  of 
these  sacred  oracles,  whose  antiquity  is  an  indisputable  evi- 
dence of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  I  hasten  to  say  that  your 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING        9 

veneration  for  them  should  be  under  certain  restrictions. 
Rash  counsels  to  regard  the  Old  Testament  arbitrarily,  or  to 
treat  it  in  a  negligible  fashion,  must  not  induce  in  you  a  re- 
version to  the  ''prostrated  emotionalism"  of  letter- worship. 
You  are  to  hold  fast  its  good,  and  yet  define  it  well — 

"For  fear  divine  philosophy 
Should  push  beyond  the  mark." 

If  the  preacher  is  bound  to  repudiate  the  notion  that  the  essen- 
tials of  religion  can  be  successfully  propagated  without  refer- 
ence to  their  experimental  history,  he  is  not  less  obligated  to 
resist  those  adherents  to  the  vain  traditions  of  Bibliolatry,  who 
were  born  and  baptized  in  them  and  only  relinquish  them  at 
death.  He  is  not  concerned  with  the  personal  merits  of  vir- 
tuous yet  mistaken  exponents  of  the  Scriptures,  but  solely  with 
what  those  Scriptures  have  to  say,  and  he  cannot  set  forth 
their  vital  truth  until  this  has  become  a  part  of  himself. 
Many  estimable  men  gird  against  the  scientific  methods  which 
have  played  havoc  with  their  predilections,  and  dispelled  the 
enervating  glamour  that  too  often  enshrouds  religious  his- 
tories. Others  who  view  these  histories  with  a  bemused  eye 
dread  disillusionment,  and  spend  what  strength  they  have  in 
standing  still.  Haunted  by  the  foreboding  that  at  every  emer- 
gency faith  and  morals  are  slipping  into  the  abyss,  some  de- 
vout but  dismayed  spirits  beat  a  hasty  retreat  into  bygone 
days  to  find  what  they  crave  rather  than  what  is  actually 
there.  From  these  and  similar  circles  have  arisen  the  false 
literalisms,  strained  analogies,  and  fantastic  exegeses  which 
are  a  reproach  to  the  modem  pulpit.  And  so  long  as  Bibli- 
cal research  is  not  subject  to  the  laws  of  evidence  nor  disinter- 
ested enough  to  care  only  for  what  is  valid,  such  romancings 
will  continue  to  weaken  preaching  with  their  allegorizing  pro- 
clivities and  lurid  apocalyptics.  In  the  end  they  will  prove 
abortive,  hut  in  the  interval  they  are  mischievous.  For  it  is  at 
best  a  hazardous  procedure  to  drive  your  hearers  to  the 
edge  of  unbelief  in  the  hope  that  they  will  recoil  to  the  center 


10  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  credulity.  Yet  this  procedure  is  countenanced  by  those 
who  first  identify  sacred  truth  with  their  opinions,  and  then 
declare  that  there  is  no  alternative  between  the  acceptance  of 
their  fallibilities  and  avowed  unbelief:  a  dogmatic  theory 
which  has  created  needless  friction  between  the  pulpit  and 
the  public  by  its  perversion  of  Scriptural  teaching.^  You  are 
warned  against  this  abuse  of  the  Bible  by  the  example  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  whose  bigotry  defiled  the  religious  her- 
itage of  Israel.  When  Jesus  appeared  their  hard  and  ex- 
clusive literalism  had  already  done  its  work,  rendering  them 
insensible  to  the  spirit  within  the  letter,  for,  to  quote  His  own 
words,  had  they  believed  Moses  and  the  prophets  they  would 
have  received  Him.  But  with  them  rites  and  ceremonies  dis- 
placed prophecy,  and  they  regarded  the  meticulous  observance 
of  codes  as  more  imperative  than  inward  purity  or  sacrificial 
obedience.  Their  insistence  upon  extemalism  wrecked  Juda- 
ism's mission  to  mankind  and  ended  in  a  tragedy  which 
brought  them  into  sinister  prominence.  Their  recreancy  indi- 
cates that  it  is  not  a  trifling  thing  to  misread  the  accounts  of 
God's  dealings  with  His  children,  nor  solely  a  matter  of  your 
own  persuasion,  important  though  that  may  be,  as  to  what 
course  the  minister  shall  pursue  in  his  interpretations  of  Holy 
Writ.  There  is  a  normal  standard  in  preaching  which  en- 
lightened men  are  pledged  to  restore  where  it  is  in  abeyance, 
and  always  and  everywhere  to  revere.  Measured  by  it  your 
work  is  neither  fugitive  nor  individual,  but  belongs  to  a  defi- 
nite institution  producing  definite  results,  and  surviving  dis- 
abilities and  misapprehensions  because  "the  integration  keeps 
pace  with  the  differentiation, ' '  and  the  entire  process  is  subor- 
dinated to  the  Divine  purpose. 

Further,  the  false  charge  that  a  scholarly  examination  of 
the  earlier  Scriptures,  in  order  to  ascertain  their  spiritual  and 
moral  values,  synchronizes  with  the  derogation  of  their  rev- 
elatory character  is  repeated  by  groups  that  agree  about  little 

1  Cf .  Professor  Kemper  Fullerton:  Prophecy  and  Authority  for  a 
scholarly  discussion  of  the  types  of  Biblical  interpretation  current  in 
the  Church. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      11 

else  except  the  resolution  to  fasten  upon  the  theology  and  the 
preaching  of  the  Church  obsolete  forms  which  her  vitality 
resents.  When  prejudices  are  at  stake,  fact  and  reason  are 
promptly  discounted,  and  fulminations  against  the  assured  re- 
sults of  Biblical  research  provoke  the  aspersions  cast  upon  the 
intellectual  integrity  of  the  pulpit.  You  are  not  to  be  di- 
verted by  these  attacks  from  tracing  out  your  homiletical 
knowledge  to  its  sources,  or  from  making  independent  inquiry 
the  touchstone  of  your  Biblical  scholarship.  The  Christian 
student  must  have  contact  with  the  living  implications  of  his 
subject  in  order  that  he  may  apply  them  to  the  forces  that 
move  his  own  time.  His  theological  education  is  beneficial  in 
proportion  as  it  enlarges  and  clarifies  his  preaching  mind,  and 
preserves  for  its  use  precious  material  which  might  otherwise 
have  remained  unavailable.  There  is  a  becoming  skepticism 
that  subserves  belief  by  purging  it  of  those  legends  formerly 
inserted  in  its  creedal  statements  to  supply  the  defects  of 
knowledge  or  to  make  them  palatable  to  current  tastes.  That 
skepticism,  so  far  from  minifying  the  sacredness  of  Old  Testa- 
ment revelation,  magnifies  it  and  rids  its  interpretation  of  the 
impedimenta  which  need  no  longer  encumber  preaching.  A 
limitless  field  for  the  excursions  of  the  licensed  imagination 
has  been  opened  up  by  the  Old  Testament  scholarship  of  the 
last  hundred  years.  The  weakening  habit  of  fanciful  com- 
ment and  the  evasion  of  disagreeable  realities  have  been 
checked,  but  not  eradicated.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures  partici- 
pate in  the  liberation  derived  from  the  scientific  learning 
which  has  transferred  mankind  to  that  universe  wherein  the 
preacher  has  to  sustain  faith  and  the  humanities.  No  intelli- 
gent person  dreams  to-day  that  the  point  of  view  of  science 
can  be  suppressed,  neither  should  any  one  suppose,  as  some 
scientists  do,  that  the  spirit  of  religion  cannot  be  imbibed  to 
advantage.  Applying  this  to  cosmogony  alone,  who  would 
now,  asks  Dr.  Martineau,  in  behalf  of  piety  return  to  the  min- 
iature cosmos  in  which  the  first  elements  of  religious  culture 
were  revealed,  or  dare  to  say  that  in  unveiling  to  us  the  amaz- 
ing creation  we  know,  scientists  have  blasphemed  its  Maker? 


12  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Not  only  preaching  but  all  that  lies  behind  its  edification  is  in- 
volved here.  The  Bible  has  driven  through  avowed  antagon- 
isms more  easily  than  it  has  thrown  off  the  burdens  heaped 
upon  it  by  mistaken  friendships.  Under  the  fire  of  its  foes  it 
has  proved  its  invulnerability ;  under  the  exposition  of  its  err- 
ing devotees  it  has  often  been  made  a  stumbling  block  to  sin- 
cere lovers  of  God.  Its  more  disciplined  service  has  been  ren- 
dered possible  by  the  demand  for  its  elucidation,  created  by 
the  necessities  of  an  ever-expanding  and  interrogating 
world.  He,  then,  is  the  visioned  preacher  who,  when  his  frag- 
ile schemes  are  wrecked,  sees  emergent  therefrom,  in  the  light 
cast  by  faith 's  historic  achievements,  those  invincible  purposes 
which  shame  his  terror.  He  will  not  be  submerged  in  dismal 
qualms  and  regrets,  but  will  be  buoyed  up  by  his  liberal  ac- 
quaintance with  the  history  of  the  Bible  and  its  heroes. 
Every  kind  of  knowledge  as  it  comes  to  his  spirit  falls  like 
fuel  on  its  altar  fires,  and  gives  a  higher  leap  to  their 
flame.  It  is  his  prerogative  to  hail  the  dawn  in  his  own  sky — 
the  new  day  which  is  itself  the  offspring  of  the  former  time 
— and  to  scrutinize  with  thankful  care  the  perpetuity  of  sav- 
ing truth  in  all  ages  alike.  Whether  in  life  or  in  death,  in  this 
world  or  the  next,  he  will  pursue,  he  will  overtake,  he  will 
divide  the  spoil,  conscious  that  while  on  pilgrimage  "weeping 
may  tarry  for  the  night,  joy  cometh  in  the  morning."  Be  of 
good  cheer :  for  successive  eras  find  a  harmonious  correspond- 
ence; errors  in  preaching  automatically  correct  themselves, 
and  differences  in  belief,  or  retrogressions  here  and  there, 
have  not  prevented  its  messengers  from  bringing  good  tidings 
from  afar  and  publishing  the  peace  of  God.  If  some  brethren 
display  inordinate  propensities  for  tradition  or  for  modernism 
as  such,  and  others  luxuriate  in  esoteric  passages  and  apoca- 
lyptic thunderings,  apply  to  them  the  principle  of  charitable 
judgment  which  Spinoza  laid  down  in  a  confession  at  once 
philosophical  and  religious.  Study  your  opponents,  said  he, 
the  more  intently  that  you  may  discern  the  sources  of  their 
influence  and  the  needs  they  endeavor  to  satisfy, — a  habit  as 
wise  in  theory  as  it  is  exceptional  in  practice. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      13 

II 

The  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  the  only  specimens  of  historical 
literature  the  ancient  East  has  bequeathed  to  civilization. 
That  in  remote  antiquity  other  Oriental  nations  possessed  such 
literatures  is  practically  certain,  but  of  them  nothing  remains ; 
and  despite  the  innumerable  Egyptian,  Assyrian  and  Baby- 
lonian inscriptions  and  other  writings  which  have  been  de- 
ciphered in  recent  years,  there  is  no  people  contemporaneous 
with  the  Israelites  whose  records  rise  to  the  dignity  of  history. 
The  light  and  heat  of  relevant  and  irrelevant  inquiries  have 
beaten  upon  the  law,  annals,  ritual  and  prophecy  of  the  Old 
Testament.  A  minute  investigation  has  permitted  nothing  to 
escape  it ;  and  its  erudition  and  ingenuity  constitute  it  one  of 
the  capital  achievements  of  modern  scholarship.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  pronounce  upon  the  value  of  the  results,  since 
I  have  nothing  worth  while  to  offer  towards  the  solution  of 
the  problems  of  the  integrity  and  authenticity  of  these  earlier 
Scriptures  as  they  are  technically  construed.  Such  savants 
as  Ewald,  Kuenen,  Wellhausen,  Budde,  Delitzsch,  De  Wette, 
A.  B.  Davidson,  Robertson  Smith,  George  Adam  Smith, 
Cheyne,  Driver,  W.  T.  Davison,  Arthur  S.  Peake,  Francis 
Brown  and  Robert  W.  Rogers,  to  mention  no  others,  have 
already  cleared  the  way  for  our  purely  practical  aims.  These 
are  facilitated  by  a  due  but  not  slavish  deference  to  the  con- 
clusions reached  by  a  critical  interpretation  which  honors 
facts,  respects  evidence,  confirms  the  philosophy  of  a  unified 
and  symmetrical  unfolding  to  man  of  the  Divine  Will,  and 
contributes  to  the  moral  and  religious  elevation  of  the  race. 
The  process  has  not  been  without  waste,  which  is,  however, 
incidental,  and  need  not  interfere  with  your  survey  of  those 
great  backgrounds  of  Holy  Scripture  which  stretch  from  the 
germinal  spiritualities  of  a  chosen  nation  to  their  consumma- 
tion in  Jesus  as  the  Christ. 

The  most  important  interest  of  all  is,  to  quote  Principal  Sir 
George  Adam  Smith,  "the  belief  of  Israel  and  of  the  Christian 
Church  that  embedded  in  and  reflected  by  the  Old  Testament 


14  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

is  a  genuine  revelation  from  God, ' '  ^  which  is  not  only  left  un- 
impaired, but  actually  confirmed  by  the  historical  and  critical 
treatment  that  has  aroused  the  irreconcilable  opposition  of 
many  zealous  pulpiteers.  In  their  repudiation  of  methods 
that  appear  to  them  disintegrating  and  destructive,  they  have 
forgotten  how  small  a  portion  of  the  Old  Testament  has  really 
been  affected;  and  those  doubting  ones  who  have  abandoned 
entire  provinces  of  its  history  will  do  well  to  reflect  that  not  a 
few  of  the  noblest  motives  and  most  fruitful  themes  of  Chris- 
tian preaching  are  found  there.  There  is  nothing  extraor- 
dinary in  this  because  the  two  religions  of  the  Bible  are  so  in- 
terlocked that  neither  can  be  fully  understood  apart  from  the 
other.  When,  therefore,  a  well  known  theological  lecturer  in 
Cambridge  University,  England,  tells  us  that  the  syllabus  he 
requires  of  students  exacts  only  a  knowledge  of  the  creeds  in 
relation  to  the  growth  of  doctrine  in  the  first  five  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era,  one  can  scarcely  wonder  that  the  sacred  sci- 
ence should  be  discredited  or  candidates  for  the  ministry  be 
few.^  For  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  those  who  regard  the  lead- 
ing ideas  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  fixed  quantity,  or  as  no 
more  than  a  mere  preface  to  the  New  Testament,  the  latter  is 
a  sealed  book.  Each  Dispensation  of  the  Scriptures  has  traits 
peculiar  to  itself  and  essentials  far  stronger  than  their  respec- 
tive affinities ;  but  the  bed-rock  of  both  is  a  Divine  Revelation 
of  the  unity  and  the  holiness  of  God  which  also  prescribes 
those  laws  of  human  life  that  correspond  with  the  Eternal 
"Will.  External  conformity  to  ritual  and  creed  is  subordi- 
nated to  righteousness  in  word  and  deed  as  the  integral  part 
of  both  Testaments:  a  fundamental  position  which  the  Hebrew 
prophet  and  the  Christian  preacher  have  pertinaciously  main- 
tained. 

The  more  you  ponder  the  ineluctable  principles  of  the  Old 
Testament,  the  more  you  perceive  in  them  that  vital  force 
which,  like  the  bush  of  Moses,  bums  but  is  not  consumed.     The 

2  Modem  Criticism  and  the  Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  Lecture 
rV,  "The  Proof  of  a  Divine  Revelation  in  the  Old  Testament." 

3  See  The  Spectator,  London,  June  11th,  1919. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      15 

dissemination  of  Sinaitic  doctrine  by  its  racial  inheritors  and 
through  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  has  deeply  affected 
the  material,  social  and  intellectual  life  of  mankind.  Yet,  as 
Luzzatto,  Geiger,  Holdheim,  Samuel  Hirsch,  Einhom,  Isaac 
M.  Wise,  Claude  G.  Montefiore,  Dr.  Schechter,  and  notably 
Dr.  Kohler  have  demonstrated,  this  dissemination  could  not 
have  occurred  had  not  their  Faith  held  intrinsically  those 
elements  of  variation  and  development,  which  are  sources  of 
reverence  and  incentive  to  every  student  of  Holy  Writ.  If  it 
had  been  cast  within  static  forms,  it  would  long  since  have 
been  shattered  by  the  ordeals  it  has  undergone  and  the  perse- 
cutions it  has  endured.  Its  capacity  for  expansion  and  read- 
justment has  triumphed  over  countless  adversities  and  re- 
newed its  virility  at  every  crucial  stage. 

The  constructive  process  which  prepared  the  way  for  the 
advent  of  Christ  affords  you  a  stimulating  survey.  In  its 
vast  hinterland,  rich  with  homiletical  treasures,  are  the  Sem- 
itic scenes  of  patriarchal  wanderings,  of  the  conquest  of 
Canaan,  of  the  events  of  the  pre-monarchical  period.  Ever 
and  anon,  the  vestiges  of  primeval  barbarism  crop  out  and  pre- 
sent those  phenomena  which  have  baffled  orthodoxy  because 
they  cannot  be  vindicated  without  the  sacrifice  of  ethical 
values.  They  belong  to  a  phase  of  the  ageless  worship  of 
man  which  is  often  as  immoral  or  rather  non-moral  as  it  is 
pre-theological.  A  ceremonialism  which  occasionally  reflected 
the  crudest  primitivism,  and  ended  in  the  regulation  of  out- 
ward behavior,  was  the  sedulous  practice  of  the  nation.  But 
its  repellent  features  should  not  deter  you  from  following  the 
gradual  ascent  of  Israel's  religion  up  from  the  lowlands  until 
it  reaches  its  summit  in  the  grandeur  of  prophetic  teaching. 
When  the  seers  appeared  Israel  sloughed  off  corruptive  accre- 
tions and  became  the  priest  and  servant  of  Jehovah.  Even 
legalism,  to  which  the  Psalter  is  an  immortal  lyrical  tribute 
seldom  attained  the  serener  altitudes  of  the  prophets,  in  whom 
you  will  find,  and  in  them  alone,  the  living  link  between  the 
two  Dispensations.  They  brought  their  countrymen  out  of 
the  Egypt  of  polluted  and  idolatrous  cultisms  into  the  Prom- 


16  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ised  Land  of  a  monotheistic  religion  held  in  justice  and  right 
living.  Under  their  guidance  an  entirely  new  conception  of 
Deity  was  evolved,  which  differentiated  Him  as  sharply  from 
primeval  gods  as  from  Chemosh  of  the  Moabites.  By  virtue 
of  the  ethical  attributes  which  the  prophets  superimposed 
upon  the  popular  idea  of  Jehovah  as  physical  might,  He  be- 
came for  Israel,  and  ultimately  for  mankind,  the  moral  Sov- 
ereign of  the  universe.  Thus  arose  that  doctrine  of  Deity 
which  is  the  noblest  contribution  of  Hebraism  to  the  world. 
With  its  gradual  spread  Israel  entered  upon  a  historic  re- 
ligious culture  culminating  in  the  Monotheism  which  unified 
and  consecrated  creation  under  the  sway  of  the  everlasting 
God. 

This  ideal,  which  has  transformed  the  world,  establishing  its 
justice  and  mercy,  was  not  the  outcome  of  metaphysical  spec- 
ulation, but  the  resultant  of  the  vision  of  history  as  a  moral 
order.*  The  prophets  anticipated  Jesus  by  conceiving  of  God 
as  Righteousness;  a  conception  that  has  moralized  all  lawful 
conceptions  of  His  love,  although  the  difference  is  largely 
verbal,  for  that  which  the  prophets  found  in  righteousness  the 
apostles  found  in  love.  "I  will  seek  that  which  was  lost,  and 
will  bring  back  that  which  was  driven  away,  and  will  bind 
up  that  which  was  broken,  and  will  strengthen  that  which  was 
sick,"  are  the  words  of  God  uttered  through  one  w^ho,  as  priest 
and  seer,  combined  in  himself  the  chief  ofBces  of  both  Dispen- 
sations.^ Nowhere  do  the  Old  Testament  prophets  portray 
men  as  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  God,  nor  do  they,  like  other 
seekers  after  Him,  tentatively  approach  the  mystery  of  His 
Being  through  the  indirect  methods  of  natural  theology. 
They  lived  and  moved  in  His  very  presence,  which  was  for 
them  the  primal  fact  of  consciousness.  Their  habit  of  reason- 
ing ascribed  to  Him  the  origin  of  every  human  good  and  every 
avenue  of  human  knowledge.  They  drew  down  from  their 
thought  of  God  upon  the  world:  they  did  not  rise  from  the 
world  upward  to  their  thought  of  God.     Their  contempla- 

*  George  F.  Moore:     History  of  Religions;  Vol.  II,  p.  29. 
sEzekiel  xxxiv:  16. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      17 

tion  of  Providence  and  the  life  of  man  was  never  of  the  na- 
ture of  a  search  after  God  Whom  they  did  not  know,  but 
always  of  the  nature  of  a  recognition  of  God  whom  they  knew." 
In  repeated  religious  crises,  when  the  ordinary  interpretation 
of  standard  doctrines  had  failed,  the  prophets  brought  back 
the  theocratic  kingdom  not  to  expostulations  and  to  argu- 
ments but  to  Jehovah.  His  word  in  their  mouths  was  a  ver- 
itable declaration  of  His  Will  at  a  particular  juncture.  It 
was  neither  an  inference  nor  a  deduction  from  previous  revela- 
tion, but  an  original  expression  of  the  character  and  purpose 
of  the  Living  God  who  made  Himself  regnant  in  the  prophet's 
soul  and  vocal  in  his  utterance.''  The  faculties  of  the  earthly 
agent  were  controlled  by  a  heavenly  power,  which  involved 
no  renunciation  of  personality,  but  raised  all  its  gifts  to  an 
extraordinary  susceptibility,  by  which  self-questioning  and 
fear  were  crowded  out,  and  the  transformed  being  of  the 
prophet  became  the  vehicle  of  divine  communication.  It  may 
be  said  in  parenthesis  that  the  New  Testament  Trinitarianism, 
which  of  course  is  not  Tritheism,  owes  much  to  the  stabilizing 
influence  of  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament  wherein  God 
is  set  forth  as  Just,  Righteous,  Loving,  Omnipresent ;  and  em- 
phasizes His  basic  Oneness.  Upon  this  teaching  the  Jew  still 
concentrates,  and  out  of  it  the  Christian  believer  in  the  Risen 
Christ  draws  the  even  greater  doctrine  of  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit. 

In  a  sacred  literature  extending  over  at  least  seven  hundred 
years,  the  authorship  of  which  embraced  so  many  different  per- 
sonalities and  points  of  view,  you  are  sure  to  find  unsystema- 
tized and  inconsistent  material.  Prophets  and  priests,  saints 
and  sages,  simple  souls  and  skeptical  thinkers,  dreamers  and 
doers,  historians  who  wrote  for  a  purpose  or  to  state  the  facts, 
came  from  every  walk  of  life,  some  with  the  most  spiritual 
ideas  and  purposes,  others  with  lower  thoughts  and  aims. 
In  studying  them  you  have  to  fix  on  the  high  central  mind, 

« A.  B.  Davidson :  Article  on  Qod  in  Hasting'a  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible;  Vol.  II,  p.  196. 

'  W.  Robertson  Smith :     The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  9. 


18  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

averse  to  compromise,  which  characterized  the  princes  of 
prophecy  who  made  war  upon  sacerdotal  excess,  ossified  ritual- 
ism, non-social  practice,  heathen  idolatry,  and  the  worst  forms 
of  ignorance  which  can  sap  a  nation's  strength :  the  species  fed 
by  flattering  superstition  and  immersed  in  racial  pride. 
Their  prophecy  was  not  a  mechanical  utterance  but  the  sym- 
phonic chorus  of  a  comprehensive  group  of  oracles  whose  gifts 
blended  in  an  accordant  whole,  and  whose  chief  theme  was 
righteousness.  How  common  is  the  observation  that  man's 
profounder  religious  experiences  are  beyond  the  compass  of 
his  speech.  Yet  in  the  prophets,  ethical  and  spiritual  sublimi- 
ties were  creatively  conceived  and  expressed  with  majestic  full- 
ness and  a  proportion  which  no  preponderant  feature  was  al- 
lowed to  mar.  Their  classic  passages  have  in  them  the  sub- 
stance of  a  thousand  homilies.  They  strike  without  disson- 
ance the  dual  notes  of  limitation  and  of  illimitableness.  This 
is  one  of  the  rarest  accomplishments  of  sacred  discourse,  since 
it  finds  entrance  for  the  loftiest  truths  in  lowliest  forms.  To 
speak  with  the  utmost  intimacy  and  yet  without  a  trace  of 
irreverence  of  things  deemed  unutterable  is  indeed  a  spiritual 
art.  Each  prophet  saw  the  identical  realities  of  righteousness 
from  his  own  standpoint,  and  communicated  them  in  his  own 
manner,  but  none  forgot  either  the  unity  of  heaven  and  earth 
or  the  infinitudes  that  lie  between  them.  Their  closeness  to 
Jehovah  did  not  conceal  from  them  the  governing  principle 
of  religious  inquiry,  that  His  thoughts  are  not  our  thoughts, 
neither  are  His  ways  our  ways.  Thus  these  preachers  of 
righteousness  were  both  near  and  distant,  humane  and  holy, 
and  voiced  their  divinest  precepts  in  simple  and  universal 
forms.  The  aloofness  that  separates  the  idealistic  from  the 
practical  or  the  materialized  mind  and  divided  Greek  and 
Roman  society  into  antagonistic  groups,  was  absent  from  their 
attitude.  They  were  not  so  situated  that  they  won  no  respect 
for  their  message  while  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed  reaped 
no  benefit.  Unlike  the  priesthoods  of  Egypt  and  Chaldea, 
they  did  not  entrench  themselves  within  a  caste,  nor  reserve 
their  instructions  for  esoteric  circles,  nor  cultivate  a  dreamy 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      19 

romanticism.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  openly  identified 
with  the  rulers  and  the  people  of  Israel,  and  placed  before 
them  what  have  been  called  the  ' '  forced  options ' '  of  life,  which 
always  crowd  its  stage,  refuse  to  be  dismissed  and  are  none  too 
patient  with  the  hardened  heart.  Power  was  theirs  even  in 
the  darkest  eras,  not  the  customary  kind,  but  that  procreant 
urge  which  enabled  them  to  surmount  obstacles,  hurl  wicked- 
ness from  its  seat  and  attain  an  unequaled  ethical  supremacy. 
Their  predictions  were  the  invariable  prelude  to  momentous 
resolution  and  still  more  momentous  action.  They  melted 
congealed  private  and  public  sentiment,  and  poured  it  into  new 
molds  of  unified  purpose,  stamping  it  afresh  with  spiritual 
significance. 

In  the  days  of  Israel's  defeat  and  ruin  they  were  the  min- 
isters of  her  consolation,  whose  exquisitely  tender  and  encour- 
aging words  have  sustained  many  nations.  Yet  even  after  ex- 
ile and  dismemberment  had  befallen  the  chosen  people,  the 
prophets  became  iconoclastic,  inveighed  against  the  wicked- 
ness which  had  wrought  the  disaster,  and  assailed,  national 
greed,  jealousy  and  idolatry  as  fiercely  as  they  did  the  preda- 
tory force  of  the  foe.  Here  they  show  the  preacher  that,  hard 
as  it  is  to  be  a  saint,  it  is  harder  yet  to  correct  and  chasten  a 
flagrantly  wayward  epoch,  and  to  overthrow  its  ruling  ideas. 
"When  the  modem  pulpit  can  make  a  guilty  commonwealth 
understand  that  it  has  reached  a  terminus  where  its  false  gods 
are  no  more  and  its  cherished  traditions  worthless,  we  shall 
better  apprehend  the  strength  of  these  great  magistrates  of 
God  who  were  the  fathers  of  our  calling.  Their  sympathetic 
and  militant  tempers  were  alike  reactions  from  the  times  in 
which  they  lived,  and  bring  them  before  us  as  concretely  and 
vividly  as  Shakespeare  ushers  in  the  world  of  his  dramas. 
Ponder  the  fact  that  the  prophets  gained  their  eminence  by 
staying  in  their  own  place,  and  were  made  serviceable  by  what 
they  had  to  say  to  society  and  not  by  its  adventitious  dignities. 
It  is  a  truism  to  remark  that  they  were  divinely  inspired  men, 
but  how  did  that  inspiration  work,  and  upon  what  lines  ?  The 
answer  is,  they  were  intent  on  righteousness,  not  only  upon 


20  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

its  adorable  perfection  in  Deity,  but  its  actual  manifestation 
in  individuals  and  in  the  State.  Translating  it  with  marvel- 
ous skill  out  of  the  abstract  into  the  concrete,  they  brought  its 
theories  to  the  tests  of  actual  life,  and  showed  them  to  be  con- 
sonant with  its  experience  and  necessary  to  its  good.  Believ- 
ing as  they  did  that  Israel  enjoyed  a  special  priesthood  in 
order  that  God  might  make  known  through  it  His  redemptive 
purposes  for  mankind,  they  strove  to  protect  the  national  in- 
tegrity by  waging  relentless  war  on  the  Baalim  which 
abounded  everywhere.  You  cannot  read  them  without  per- 
ceiving that  a  supreme  operation  was  in  progress  which  estab- 
lished the  divine  original  of  justice  for  their  own  and  for  after 
ages.  Their  exposition  of  some  attributes  of  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing is  unsurpassed  even  in  the  New  Testament,  and  their  con- 
structive vision  of  the  religious  growth  of  mankind  from  its 
primitive  beginnings  to  its  completion  in  the  universal  gov- 
ernance of  the  coming  Deliverer  is  epical  in  its  descriptions 
and  determination.  The  raw  material  of  myth  and  legend  and 
the  world-shaping  movements  of  the  three  great  empires  that 
encircled  Israel — Assyria,  Babylonia  and  Persia, — were  assim- 
ilated for  the  elaboration  of  ethical  teaching.  This  was  their 
sublimely  monotonous  plea,  and  those  who  carefully  note  their 
fidelity  to  its  exactions  will  best  understand  the  motive  of  the 
prophet's  vocation  and  the  reason  for  its  penetration  into  the 
farthest  recesses  of  life  and  conduct.  A  summary  of  the  ethic 
of  Israel  is  found  in  the  familiar  text  of  Micah:  "He  hath 
showed  thee,  0  man,  what  is  good ;  and  what  doth  Jehovah  re- 
quire of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  kindness,  and  to 
walk  humbly  with  thy  God. ' '  *  Such  teaching,  which  could 
be  duplicated,  if  not  surpassed,  by  other  Old  Testament  proph- 
ets, is  the  result  of  religious  maturity  annealed  in  the  furnace 
of  experience  and  expanded  by  divine  energy.  While,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  prophets  spread  abroad  ideals  of  the  Creator 
and  of  the  creature,  which  have  been  the  aspirations  of  the 
pure  in  heart,  they  also  set  over  against  the  triumphant  reign 
of  righteousness  an  irrevocable  divorce  of  reprobate  men  and 
8  Micah  Ti :  8. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      21 

nations  from  that  righteousness  which  left  these  outcasts  in 
darkness  and  despair.  Their  sense  of  sin  was  deep  and  vivid ; 
they  saw  it  not  simply  as  an  outward  blemish  of  behavior  but 
as  that  principle  of  evil  within  humanity  which  destroys  the 
very  springs  of  its  existence.  They  knew  the  unremitting 
malignancy  of  the  mystery  of  iniquity,  and  felt  the  need  of  an 
incessant  struggle  against  its  power. 

Although  these  elect  spirits  who  pierced  the  sensory  vail 
were  sometimes  overwhelmed  by  the  infinite  vistas  beyond, 
they  were  never  purveyors  of  bewildering  mysticisms,  nor 
inflated  thaumaturgists  reveling  in  wild  and  distorted  no- 
tions of  the  invisible.  Even  the  apocalyptic  writings  of  the 
Old  Testament,  on  which  so  many  modern  homilists  are 
wrecked,  were  as  a  rule  definitely  related  to  contemporary  cir- 
cumstances. Where  their  splendors  are  somewhat  dusky,  as  in 
Ezekiel,  they  are  still  luminous  and  interspersed  with  calm 
recitals  and  calculated  appeals.  The  eternities  brood  over 
much  that  they  utter,  and  excite  the  awed  expectation  that 
something  hidden  from  all  vision  draws  near.  Yet  they  make 
it  plain  that  nothing  can  appear  which  is  not  for  the  perpet- 
uity of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Historically  considered,  the  Old  Testament  was  the  earliest 
earthly  homeland  of  the  soul  of  Jesus,  from  which  He  derived 
some  truths  He  taught,  and  whose  history  He  regarded  as 
preparatory  to  His  Advent.  He  interpreted  its  laws  as  ex- 
pressions of  the  righteousness  He  came  to  fulfill ;  its  language 
was  upon  His  lips  from  the  sojourn  at  Nazareth  to  the  ascent 
of  the  Cross;  and  He  perpetuated  its  prophetic  spirit  and 
message  in  the  Church  He  founded.^  Yet  neither  His  use  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  nor  that  of  the  Apostles  silences  the 
critical  questions  which  have  signalized  their  modern  treat- 
ment. The  hard  and  fast  lines  that  were  afterwards  drawn 
around  them  by  Jewish  and  Christian  theologians  were  not 
authorized  by  the  example  of  our  Lord  nor  of  His  earliest  fol- 
lowers.    He  did  not  hesitate  to  set  aside  the  temporary  pro- 

»  Cf .  Principal  Sir  George  Adam  Smith:  Modem  Criticiam  and  The 
Preaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  2. 


22  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

visions  of  the  Old  Testament  nor  to  show  a  decided  prefer- 
ence for  its  essential  values.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment quoted  from  the  Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
a  version  containing  a  number  of  books  not  found  in  the 
Hebrew  Canon,  and  also  varying  in  material  ways  from  the 
•^received  text.  They  manifested  indifference  to  the  exact  words 
of  the  citations,  and  occasionally  different  passages  were  min- 
gled together.  Nevertheless,  for  our  Lord  and  for  His  Apos- 
tles these  books  were  the  Bible  of  their  education  and  min- 
istry, and  it  has  been  pertinently  observed  that  what  was  in- 
dispensable to  the  Author  of  our  Redemption  must  always  be 
indispensable  to  us. 

The  prophetic  vocation,  although  distinctive  in  Old  Testa- 
ment literature,  was  not  peculiar  to  it.  The  Stoics  and  other 
philosophers  frequented  the  places  of  concourse  in  Greek  and 
Roman  cities  where  they  expatiated  upon  their  systems  with 
their  usual  cynical  diatribes.  In  the  farther  East  the  mis- 
sionaries of  Buddhism  carried  its  doctrines  beyond  the  fron- 
tiers of  India,  and  centuries  later  the  disciples  of  Islam  sup- 
plemented their  use  of  the  sword  in  propaganda  with 
truculent  and  picturesque  speech.  Preaching  as  thus  under- 
stood has  been  eloquent  in  other  tongues  and  for  other  creeds 
than  those  of  the  Bible.  Nevertheless,  the  Hebrew  prophets 
invested  the  spoken  word  with  such  transcendent  significance 
that  even  the  Roman  Empire  felt  its  benefits,  and  from  their 
ampler  watersheds  flowed  the  healing  rivers  which  came  to 
their  floodtide  in  the  New  Testament.  Their  recognition  of 
God  in  the  realm  of  human  affairs  where  He  has  been  least  re- 
membered and  His  punishments  have  consequently  been  the 
greater,  bore  fruit  in  St.  Chrysostom  's  use  of  their  writings  to 
scourge  the  vices  and  comfort  the  sorrows  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Antioch.  From  St.  Augustine's  De  Civitate  Dei  to  Dante's 
De  Monarchia  and  Wycliffe's  De  Domimo  Divino,  treatises 
upon  righteousness  in  civil  government  and  political  ideals 
have  been  largely  originated  by  prophetic  teaching.  When  the 
means  of  understanding  the  Hebrew  text  had  been  recovered, 
by  its  aid  Savonarola  became  the  prophet  of  the  civic  re- 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      23 

generation  of  Florence.  Although  the  German  Reformers 
were  too  entranced  with  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith 
to  do  justice  to  the  social  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  is 
to  Luther  that  we  owe  one  of  the  choicest  expositions  of  that 
teaching.  The  imperial  intellect  of  Calvin  made  the  ancient 
prophets  audible  to  the  Protestant  world,  and  their  social  and 
political  influence  upon  Northern  Europe  and  America  can 
be  traced  to  the  massive  erudition  and  admirable  exegetical 
methods  which  his  commentaries  display.  The  social  con- 
science, which  to-day  views  the  Christ  not  only  as  the  Eternal 
Son  of  God,  the  Propitiation  for  sin,  the  Judge  of  quick  and 
dead,  but  also  as  the  Man  Who  "in  the  midst  of  the  people 
fought  a  fight  in  behalf  of  all  the  people  which  is  never  to  be 
forgotten,"  has  been  quickened  and  enlightened  by  the 
prophets.  Who  that  has  caught  but  a  glimpse  of  their  great 
souls  can  look  with  indifference  upon  the  rise  of  the  city  and 
all  the  evils  of  its  groA^'lh,  or  upon  the  brutalities  of  the  in- 
dustrial order  ?  They  watched  the  transformation  of  Hebrew 
society  from  an  agricultural  to  a  commercial  state,  and  safe- 
guarded this  development  by  inculcating  the  principles  of  an 
equal  and  speedy  justice,  freedom  for  the  enslaved,  and  the 
cleansing  of  social  relationships.  Would  to  God  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  had  always  been  as  jealous  of  His  royalties  in 
mankind !  Then  would  all  her  children  have  been  taught  of 
the  Lord,  and  great  would  have  been  their  peace. 

The  prophets  were  eminent  public  characters ;  the  psalmists 
whom  we  have  but  barely  mentioned  preferred  to  dwell  alone. 
"Hide  thy  life,"  said  Epicurus,  and  the  practice  of  such 
privacy  by  the  authors  of  the  Psalter  exemplifies  the  wisdom  of 
the  maxim.  That  they  escaped  the  notice  of  the  annalists  was 
not  the  least  of  the  advantages  they  owed  to  their  seclusion, 
wherein  they  cultivated  the  things  of  the  spirit  which,  though 
they  disturb  men,  yet  when  they  are  reverenced,  yield  a  lively 
and  a  constant  joy.  To  them  the  psalmists  gave  unique  and 
unequaled  setting  in  lyric  poetry  which  reaches  the  heights 
even  of  the  unrivaled  religious  imagination  of  the  Hebrew. 
It  was  the  fixity  of  the  law  of  the  covenant  of  Judaism,  which 


24  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

is  the  surest  sign  of  its  sanctity,  that  formed  the  niicleus  of 
its  hymns.  Neither  the  continuity  which  is  the  essence  of 
history,  nor  the  chronologies  which  connect  its  happenings 
were  the  bonds  of  the  Psalter.  Its  composers  had  no  single 
definite  background,  nor  were  they  the  servants  of  doctrinal 
formulas.  The  religious  ideals  of  Israel  were  their  indissolu- 
ble tie,  albeit  their  expressions  of  those  ideals  were  variously 
applied  at  separated  intervals  and  to  different  events.  Since 
the  Psalter  was  not  homogeneous  in  authorship,  nor  the  prod- 
uct of  a  single  age,  nor  the  compilation  of  an  anthology  be- 
neath unity  of  circumstance  and  aim,  its  leading  trait  is,  as 
might  be  expected,  a  manifold  diversity  which  ranges  from 
meditation,  petition  and  adjuration  to  anthems  of  praise  and 
worship,  invocations  to  peace  and  war,  ascriptions  to  right- 
eousness and  hallelujahs  of  thanksgiving.  The  plaints  of  per- 
plexed thinkers,  the  sorrows  of  hunted  fugitives,  the  distresses 
of  physical  sufferers  are  mingled  with  epic  narrations  and  tri- 
umphant paeans.  The  period  they  cover  extends  from  the  age 
of  David  to  that  of  the  Maccabees,  a  prolonged  interval  during 
which  they  were  the  songs  of  private  devotion  and  later  "a 
collection  of  collections ' '  and  also  ' '  the  Hymnal  of  the  second 
Temple." 

The  truths  these  rhapsodists  sang  did  not  follow  the  usual 
order  of  development  from  a  crudely  national  to  an  enlight- 
ened faith.  They  were  immediately  visualized  and  set  forth 
with  the  utmost  passion  of  inspiration  and  the  intensest  hu- 
man sympathy :  a  combination  of  qualities  that  leaves  emotion 
in  the  heart  and  music  in  the  memory.  Earthly  matters 
seemed  trivial  to  the  psalmists  when  compared  with  the 
Divine  drama  as  a  whole.  Expositors  who  do  not  realize  this 
timelessness  have  read  into  their  symbolisms  secular  references 
to  particular  events  in  the  history  of  Israel,  but  there  is  noth- 
ing to  support  such  implications  beyond  the  fact  that  the  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem  and  the  Babylonian  Captivity  give 
them  a  slender  foundation.  Moreover,  a  poetical  literature 
which  contains  the  earliest  and  the  latest  growths  of  He- 
braism should  be  received  by  the  preacher  on  its  own  terms. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      25 

The  zeal  for  retribution,  the  exhortations  to  revenge,  the 
fervid  hate  of  Israel's  foes,  found  in  the  imprecatory  psalms, 
are  tokens  of  the  ruthless  war  waged  upon  surrounding  and 
uncovenanted  nations.  The  defiance  and  wholesale  destruc- 
tion of  their  enemies  were  viewed  by  the  Hebrews  as  acts  of 
loyalty  to  the  Theocracy.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  such  senti- 
ments are  foreign  to  the  ethic  of  the  prophets  and  of  the  New 
Testament,  nor  is  there  any  possible  coordination  between 
these  breathings  of  threatening  and  slaughter  and  the  un- 
utterable longing  for  truth,  purity  and  righteousness  found 
elsewhere  in  the  Psalter.  Deal  with  the  Psalter  after  the 
fashion  indicated  by  Principal  W.  T.  Davison  in  his  two 
volumes,  The  Praises  of  Israel^  and  it  will  become  for  you  a 
criterion  of  preaching  ability,  in  which  the  piety  of  the  saint, 
the  knowledge  of  the  scholar  and  the  breadth  of  the  humanist 
are  drawn  upon.     Thus  to  know  and  love  the  psalms  is  indeed, 

"Part  of  life's  unalterable  good." 

Their  authors  were  not  by  intention  reasoners  and  teachers 
but  fellow-seekers  after  God.  To  enter  into  His  presence 
and  to  awake  in  His  likeness  were  their  ardent  desires, 
and,  though  they  sometimes  clung  with  regrettable  per- 
sistency to  the  lessons  of  their  older  experience,  they  never 
failed  to  emphasize  afresh  the  nature  and  the  counsels  of  the 
beneficent  God,  as  these  became  more  real  to  their  apprehen- 
sion. The  consciousness  of  their  spiritual  comradeship  has 
endeared  them  to  Hebrew  and  Gentile  alike,  and  Christians 
delight  and  live  in  the  Psalter  as  in  no  other  book  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Judged  by  equitable  standards,  the  piety  of  its 
writers  is  of  the  highest  character.  They  portray  the  Hebrew 
religion  as  a  Faith  without  an  equal  in  the  pre-Christian 
world.  Even  in  the  New  Testament  the  psalms  have  no  coun- 
terpart. They  dwell  in  the  very  heart  of  Israel's  revelation, 
with  a  beauty  and  a  pathos  all  their  own,  as  the  largest  and 
most  perfect  expression  in  praise  of  the  divine  law  of  obedi- 
ence, and  mirror  with  the  utmost  fidelity  every  alternation  of 


26  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

human  experience  in  the  quest  for  God.  Enraptured  by  His 
nearness,  but  dreading  His  reproof,  the  Psalmists  still  believed 
that  notwithstanding  the  delusions  in  which  man  has  wan- 
dered, the  sins  and  follies  he  has  committed,  he  will  yet  find 
recompense  for  his  pains  and  pardon  for  his  transgressions  in 
the  mercy  which  endureth  forever. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  not  easy  coldly  to  compute  the  sum  of 
those  positive  achievements  which  can  be  attributed  to  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psalmists.  It  suffices  to  say  that  of  the  three 
most  opulent  endowments  which  the  pre-Christian  ages  be- 
queathed to  the  race,  that  of  the  prophets  and  psalmists  alone 
has  been  infinitely  more  elevating  than  those  of  Greek  culture 
and  Roman  law.  This  statement  will  perhaps  find  a  readier 
credence  now  than  it  would  have  received  before  the  late  war 
came  upon  Christendom  like  a  beast  out  of  the  wood.  We 
were  but  recently  accustomed  to  speak  with  bated  breath  of 
the  processes  that  develop  the  intellectual  faculities  alone, 
organize  man's  knowledge  for  material  conquests,  and 
tighten  his  grip  upon  the  physical  resources  of  the  earth.  I 
am  not  so  sure  that  we  are  quite  as  obsequious  toward  these 
processes  as  we  were.  True,  their  gains  are  very  real,  yet 
what  are  they,  necessary  as  they  appear  to  be;  and  what  are 
the  even  more  valuable  triumphs  of  the  aesthetic  and  literary 
imagination,  when  compared  with  the  moral  and  spiritual 
ascendencies  of  Hebrew  prophecy?  These  stand  out  in  bold 
relief  against  our  somber  skies  to  admonish  us  that  the  truths 
inscribed  on  the  pages  of  revelation  remain  forever  the  same, 
and  will  brook  no  rebellion.  There  was  little  that  the  proph- 
ets did  not  array  beneath  their  banner,  but  they  gave  prece- 
dence to  those  primal  truths,  and  left  the  rest  to  take  their 
place,  as  they  could  well  afford  to  do,  under  the  governance  of 
the  Supreme  Righteousness.  Preach  them  unceasingly,  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  For  you  do  not  have  to  be  versed 
in  the  minutiae  of  criticism  to  combine  the  acceptance  of  the 
main  results  of  the  modem  view  of  the  Old  Testament  writ- 
ings, even  in  its  advanced  form,  with  a  firm  belief  in  the 
reality  of  their  supernatural  revelation.     The  controversy  is 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      27 

brought  to  a  definite  issue,  not  in  the  region  of  purely 
literary  questions,  where  debates  proceed  upon  the  age, 
style,  internal  traits  and  historical  credence  of  single  books, 
but  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  kingdoms  and  empires,  in  the 
theater  of  racial  progress,  in  the  steady  growth  on  earth 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.^°  Nor  should  you  permit  the  attrac- 
tions of  science,  philosophy,  art,  or  literature  to  seduce  you 
from  your  legitimate  mission  as  a  preacher  of  Old  Testament 
righteousness.  Nature  has  still  to  surrender  to  science  a  vast 
arcana;  philosophy  must  continue  to  broaden  its  contempla- 
tions while  knowledge  increases ;  and  literature  has  not  yet  all 
time  and  all  existence  at  its  disposal.  But  God  has  had  His 
workmen  from  the  first,  who  built  His  Kingdom  upon  im- 
movable foundations.  Its  several  stages  show  its  cohesion, 
each  stage  being  a  vital  product  of  the  preceding  one,  and 
their  entirety  constitutes  an  organic  whole.  No  one  stage 
needs  a  justification  different  from  that  of  all,  since  what 
justifies  the  Kingdom 's  actuality  justifies  its  successive  phases 
of  self-realization,  from  the  prophetic  messages  of  Hebraism 
to  the  Messianic  Ideal  incarnated  in  Jesus.  Nothing  is 
negligible  in  a  Divine  evolution  for  which  past,  present 
and  future  are  an  eternal  Now,  and  upon  which  the 
salvation  of  mankind  depends.  Be  alert  to  the  entire  volume 
of  the  ancient  Scriptures  of  Israel ;  for  though  they  are  often 
sketched  in  merest  outlines,  they  are  lines  of  fire.  Pa- 
triarchs in  the  wilderness,  soldiers  on  the  battlefield,  kings  in 
their  high  or  low  estate,  statesmen  who  were  the  nation's 
hope,  poets  who  were  its  pride,  and  traitors  who  were  its 
shame ;  saints  who  could  be  hideous  sinners,  and  sinners  who 
were  redeemed  to  sainthood;  the  innocent  child,  the  godly 
father,  the  prayerful  mother,  the  sturdy  youth,  the  boasting 
giant,  the  righteous  man,  the  lying  prophet,  the  martyred 
patriot ;  the  solitary  hero,  who,  like  those  of  classic  fable,  over- 
came singlehanded ;  the  wizard,  the  trafficker,  the  wise  man 

10  Cf.  Professor  A.  S.  Peake:  The  Bible,  Its  Origin,  Its  Sigmficance 
and  Its  Abiding  Worth,  for  a  lucid  and  balanced  discussion  of  the 
subject. 


28  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

and  the  fool  —  what  a  portrait  gallery !  Even  Schleiermacher, 
great  preacher  though  he  was,  could  not  turn  from  the  Old 
Testament  without  loss.  "One  cannot  but  see,"  said  Dr. 
John  Ker,  "that  his  style  suffered  from  this  neglect."  Be- 
come acquainted  therefore  with  the  ethical  impetuosity  of 
Hosea;  the  wisdom  of  the  statesman-prophet  in  Isaiah;  the 
sublime  visions  of  the  anonymous  seer  of  the  Exile ;  the  * '  bur- 
den of  the  Lord"  laid  upon  Jeremiah.  From  such  intimacy 
what  may  your  preaching  not  gain  in  conciseness,  concrete- 
ness,  reasoned  conviction,  the  profounder  meaning  of  or- 
dinary circumstances,  the  real  nature  of  current  history? 

Ill 

Our  Lord's  preaching  began  without  a  completely  formu- 
lated system  of  either  ethical  or  religious  doctrine.  He  did 
not  propose  to  satisfy  all  the  cravings  of  man's  curiosity  con- 
cerning the  spiritual  problems  of  this  life  or  of  the  hereafter. 
He  gave  no  definition  of  God,  but  He  brought  Him  into  the  life 
of  man  in  a  final  and  authoritative  way  and  with  a  fullness  of 
grace  and  truth  that  embraced  every  vital  interest  and  suf- 
fused religious  experience  with  a  superhuman  glow.  His 
unique  Personality  gave  that  authority  to  His  words  which 
caused  His  hearers  to  exclaim  "Never  man  so  spake!"  The 
gist  of  His  teaching  dealt  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  as  co- 
extensive with  the  peoples  of  earth :  a  kingdom  purposed  from 
the  first,  existing  potentially  in  the  history  of  the  Hebrew 
race,  and  culminating  in  Himself.  The  nature  of  this  king- 
dom, the  principles  that  govern  it,  the  obligations  resting 
upon  its  members,  and  the  Being  and  functions  of  its  King, 
were  the  themes  of  His  earlier  ministry.  The  chief  elements 
of  His  message  were  inherited  from  the  Hebrew  seers,  and 
carry  with  them  the  continuity  which  He  declared  could  not  be 
severed.  His  references  to  the  Old  Testament  Scripture^  were 
sufficiently  inclusive  to  summarize  their  spiritual  content,  and, 
although  He  seldom  quoted  them  verbatim,  by  citation  from 
them,  by  allusion,  parable,  sanction,  and  occasional  rejection. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      29 

He  became  their  arbitrator.  The  undertone  of  His  utterances, 
as  well  as  His  positive  statements,  affirmed  the  fact  that  His 
Mission  and  the  Kingdom  were  identical:  the  uninterrupted 
development  of  one  divine  order  to  which  all  history  and  ex- 
perience were  subsidiary. 

Viewed  in  its  broader  aspects  this  primal  reality  has  been 
served  by  Hebrew  and  Christian  alike.  The  Theocracy  once 
objective  to  the  Jew,  who  conceived  of  Israel  as  an  elect  priest- 
hood ordained  of  Jehovah  to  become  the  premier  people  of  a 
world  dominion,  eventually  took  another  form,  enforced  upon 
it  by  the  repeated  depravities  of  the  nation  and  an  increasing 
realization  of  the  holiness  of  God.  Yet  if  the  hour  of  Israel's 
reign  was  postponed,  and  the  conception  of  its  nature  largely 
modified,  to  the  devout  Jew,  Jehovah  was  still  the  monarch  of 
mankind  Who  would  bring  every  earthly  blessing  in  His  train. 
But  even  this  prospect  faded,  and  at  last  the  disillusioned 
gaze  of  the  ancient  seers  was  fixed,  not  upon  the  faithless 
people  nor  upon  its  loyal  remnant,  but  upon  the  solitary 
'* Suffering  Servant,"  ''the  Messiah,"  Who  by  His  heroic 
sacrifice  was  to  unite  Israel  beneath  a  federal  sway.  It  was 
left  to  the  imagination  of  the  poet-prophets  to  clothe  this  ideal 
sovereignty  with  every  resplendent  circumstance,  and  to  de- 
pict in  glowing  colors  the  advent  of  a  Being  who  would  sub- 
due all  his  enemies  and  inaugurate  the  divine  commonwealth 
of  righteousness  and  peace. 

This  preliminary  development,  preparatory  for  Jesus,  regu- 
lated His  use  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  awakened  in  Him 
the  Messianic  consciousness  which  shaped  and  permeated  His 
teaching.  It  consisted  of  "the  distilled  essence  of  the  Old 
Testament,"  which,  however.  He  revolutionized,  giving  it  an 
entirely  new  direction  and  fulfilment  in  Himself.  Upon  His 
self-realization  the  Christianity  you  preach  depends,  and  your 
belief  in  His  absoluteness  is  determinative  of  your  ministry. 
Yet  if  you  cannot  adequately  understand  the  mystery  of  your 
own  nature,  how  can  you  hope  to  apprehend  that  of  your 
Divine  Lord?  Its  appeal  is  to  history  and  to  psychology; 
speculation,  as  such,  takes  you  but  a  little  way,  and  it  is,  there- 


30  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

fore,  the  highest  wisdom  to  admit  that  the  Being  of  Jesus  is 
the  secret  of  God  and  of  His  self -manifestation  to  man.  But 
you  do  not  have  to  revere  it  unintelligently  at  an  awe-stricken 
distance.  Ponder  its  revelation  in  the  life  Jesus  lived  and 
the  Gospel  He  preached,  and  you  will  perceive  that  what  had 
been  for  the  Hebrew  a  Messianic  aspiration  became  in  Him 
the  ever  present  consciousness  of  His  vital  Oneness  with  the 
Father. 

The  dull,  stagnant,  blighting  ecclesiasticism  in  which  the 
religion  of  Israel  languished  during  our  Lord's  earthly  min- 
istry afforded  no  suitable  environment  for  any  servant  of 
God.  The  dissertations  of  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  who  usurped 
the  seat  of  Moses  and  hedged  about  the  law  with  traditions 
that  obscured  its  meaning  and  obstructed  its  operation,  were 
entirely  antagonistic  to  the  mission  and  message  of  Jesus. 
Yet  there  were  also  protagonists  of  the  Messianic  hope  who 
were  not  fettered  by  the  lifeless  formalism  of  that  day: 
vigilant  and  prayerful  souls  who,  though  few  in  number,  clung 
to  the  purer  ideals  of  their  ancestors,  and  waited  for  the 
consolation  of  Israel.  Our  Lord  went  beyond  both  these  groups 
and  heralded  the  Kingdom  for  what  it  was,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  always  been,  a  present,  living,  growing  reality. 
He  showed  that  the  same  fundamental  principles  underlay 
and  created  all  changing  phenomena,  which  were  adapted  to 
the  particular  stage  of  evolution  in  which  they  occurred. 
Now  that  the  fullness  of  the  time  had  come,  it  was  not  by 
specific  Mosaic  legislation,  still  less  by  the  erroneous  and  acrid 
teachings  of  its  latest  commentators,  but  by  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  truths,  which  from  the  beginning  had  found  their 
amplest  expression  in  the  prophets,  that  the  Kingdom  would 
be  brought  in  and  prove  victorious.  Injunction,  code  and 
ordinance  were  honored  by  being  absorbed  in  its  great  law  of 
love  to  God  and  one's  neighbor.  The  realization  of  its  essen- 
tial character  and  aims  was  in  Himself;  its  fulfillment  be- 
longed to  His  future.  For  this  fulfillment  He  instructed  His 
disciples  to  pray,  and  to  believe  that  their  prayers  would  be 
answered  when  all  men  should  know  and  do  the  Father's 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      31 

will.  Crowns  and  thrones  were  not  abolished:  they  were 
etherealized  into  symbols  of  the  reward  of  the  saint  and 
the  martyr.  They  reigned  in  His  kingdom  who  best  served 
truth  and  the  brotherhood,  and  He  became  its  King  because  He 
alone  exalted  His  divine  ideal  by  a  divine  sacrifice.  These 
interpretations  rest,  first,  in  what  He  was,  and  again,  upon 
what  He  taught.  They  unify  both  Dispensations  of  Holy 
Writ  so  that  each  yields  everything  implied  in  its  Divine 
intention.  Jesus,  in  that  He  came  both  to  be  and  to  do  the 
Highest  Will,  is  the  Light  of  all  Scripture  and  the  Saviour 
of  the  race. 

The  inevitable  result  of  this  teaching  was  a  radical  sifting 
of  the  human  family.  National  boundaries  and  religious 
castes,  which  had  shut  out  infinitely  more  than  they  had  ever 
enclosed,  were  swept  away.  Barriers  fell  on  every  side,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  the  spiritual  evolution  of  man  the  way 
was  cleared  for  a  universal  Faith  and  fraternity,  which  were 
the  consequences  of  the  doctrine  of  God's  Fatherhood  and  the 
essentials  of  Christ's  regenerative  program.  He  began  His 
mission  by  placing  an  equal  value  on  all  souls,  and  by  simpli- 
fying the  distinctions  which  had  separated  them.  The  good, 
the  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  lowly  and  the  believing 
were  the  aristocracies  of  His  Kingdom. 

The  path  which  He  trod  from  Nazareth  into  His  public 
ministry  can  be  clearly  traced.  He  was  a  rabbi  who  gath- 
ered around  Him  a  few  disciples  of  His  own  locality  and  so- 
cial condition,  to  whom  He  conveyed  the  truths  they  could 
assimilate.  He  was  an  evangelist  who  itinerated  among  the 
shepherdless  multitudes,  healing  their  bodies  and  souls.  He 
was  also  the  prophet  who  proclaimed  the  purposes  of  Heaven 
in  terms  that  indicated  His  perfect  intimacy  with  the  Father 
and  His  perfect  obedience  to  the  Father's  will.  But  these 
characteristics  do  not  account  for  Jesus  as  He  lives  in  Chris- 
tian history  and  experience,  nor  explain  the  unparalleled  sway 
of  His  Person  and  His  Gospel. 

At  this  juncture  you  have  to  guard  against  the  misconcep- 
tion of  values  which  easily  besets  Christian  thinking  and  is 


32  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

injurious  to  Christian  preaching.  In  the  first  place,  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  has  been  periodically  entangled  with  Jewish 
Messianism.  From  the  time  of  the  writing  of  the  Thessa- 
lonian  Epistles  until  now  there  have  been  earnest  and  de- 
voted believers  who  confidently  expected  the  return  of  Christ 
to  earth,  to  be  confirmed  in  His  Messiahship  by  supernatural 
portents.  Perhaps  the  expectation  was  not  devoid  of  a  sem- 
blance of  reason  in  the  Apostolic  age ;  but  after  two  thousand 
years  of  Christian  history,  and  the  spread  of  Christian  truth 
and  civilization,  it  would  seem  that  Eternal  Wisdom  has  re- 
fused to  honor  the  claims  of  pre-millenarianism.  The  past 
has  poured  contradiction  upon  its  theories,  which  have 
scanty  intellectual  basis  in  the  best  philosophical  or  theological 
thought  of  to-day.  When  these  theories  are  the  outcome  of 
the  passion  for  belief  as  a  release  from  the  truth  which  ex- 
perience imposes  upon  us,  religion,  despite  the  declarations 
of  those  who  assume  a  monopoly  of  spiritual  superiority,  be- 
comes a  denial  of  realities,  a  form  of  anaesthesia,  a  means 
of  escape  from  the  actualities  of  life.  Their  use  of  Scripture 
has  been  widely  and  justly  criticized  as  unscientific  and  un- 
trustworthy. I  do  not  care  to  dogmatize  upon  a  question 
so  highly  speculative,  but  I  am  not  disposed  to  surrender  to 
the  inference  that  the  Church  which  has  mothered  many  na- 
tions is  no  more  than  a  stop-gap  during  the  lengthening  ages 
before  this  strange  vindication  of  her  existence  occurs.  Nor 
do  I  incline  to  the  notion  that  the  Gospel  of  the  Cross  and  the 
Resurrection  is  so  unequal  to  the  evangelization  of  mankind 
that,  if  it  is  not  to  fail  utterly,  it  must  be  seconded  by  an- 
other parousia,  such  as  millenarian  teachers  describe.  The 
enterprise  of  elevating  the  Faith  into  genuine  holiness  and 
catholicity,  of  bringing  beneath  its  control  the  accumula- 
tions of  knowledge,  of  readjusting  an  exceedingly  com- 
plex social  situation  to  its  precepts,  is  not  advanced  by 
this  theory.  It  is  really  a  return  to  Jewish  provincialism, 
involving  those  materialistic  ideas  which  invaded  Christianity 
at  its  genesis,  and  voicing  a  despair  of  humanity  which  may 
easily  be  perverted  into  pharisaism.     Be  content  to  know  that 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      33 

the  Incarnation  is  the  permanent  factor  of  human  life,  by  the 
abiding  presence  in  the  Church  and  in  believers  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  that  His  enduement  is  a  far  more  effectual  solvent 
of  the  difficulties  you  will  encounter  than  belief  in  a  second 
physical  manifestation  of  the  Messiah.  Possess  your  souls  in 
patience  until  your  Lord  shall  be  pleased  to  appear,  and  may 
He  find  you  intent  not  so  much  upon  an  open  heaven  as  upon 
a  regenerated  earth,  and  more  solicitous  for  its  betterment 
than  to  decree  the  moment  or  the  manner  of  His  coming! 
The  second  tendency  of  present  day  preaching  resents 
the  humanity  of  Jesus,  and  is  more  insidious  than  many  are 
aware.  It  received  impetus  from  the  reaction  against  the 
naturalism  of  the  last  century,  which  maltreated  religious  con- 
sciousness and  strove  to  reduce  its  convictions  to  a  merely 
physiological  significance.  Yet  there  is  a  paramount  truth 
in  the  great  statement  that  "the  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us, "  ^^  to  which  much  popular  theology  and  hortatory 
preaching  do  no  sort  of  justice.  Mr.  A.  Clutton-Brock,  the 
English  essayist,  avers  that  a  pulpit  which  accentuated  the 
genuineness  of  the  Temptation  of  Our  Lord  or  the  reality  of 
His  cry  of  agony  on  the  Cross  would  be  suspect.  There  is  a 
cardinal  truth  in  the  idea  of  Christ  as  the  "Pleroma,"  but 
it  is  not  explained  by  loose  phraseology,  and  when  you  assert 
the  Deity  of  Christ  define  what  you  mean,  and  remember  that 
the  evolution  of  theological  thought  is  the  record  of  a  per- 
sistent attempt  to  solve  the  problems  your  assertion  involves. 
Keep  ever  before  you  the  historical  Jesus,  not  "as  a  shape- 
less, colorless,  featureless  phantom,  or  an  empty  semblance 
of  a  man,"  but  as  the  more  worshipful  because  of  His  hu- 
manity. He  trod  the  winepress  alone,  not  in  a  foreign  and 
fictitious  perfection,  immune  from  pain  and  grief,  but  in  our 
actual  sorrowing,  suffering  nature,  and,  as  St.  John  de- 
scribes Him,  "bearing  the  cross  for  Himself. "^^  The 
writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews,  who  certainly  cannot  be 
accused  of  a  heretical  Christology,  and  who  lights  up  the  doc- 

11  St.  John  i:  14. 
"St.  John  xixi  17. 


34  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

trine  of  the  Trinity  by  blending  the  idea  of  plurality  with  the 
absolute  unity  of  Monotheism,  breathing  into  it  the  breath  of 
life,  and  bringing  God  into  personal  contact  with  His  off- 
spring, after  ascribing  to  Christ  an  everlasting  authority  as 
"the  effulgence  of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  very  image  of 
His  substance, ' '  goes  on  to  say, ' '  It  behooved  Him  in  all  things 
to  be  made  like  unto  His  brethren,  that  He  might  become  ^ 
merciful  and  faithful  High  Priest  in  things  pertaining  to 
God. "  ^^  At  the  risk  of  disturbing  elements  of  worth,  this 
value  of  Jesus  as  the  Man  must  be  recovered  to  the  religious 
mind.  Fortunately  the  text  of  the  New  Testament  shows  the 
perspective  of  the  writers  and  how  they  saw  Him  as  He  is 
not  always  seen  now.  If  we  would  be  like  Him,  we  must  see 
Him  in  the  same  way,  as  He  is,  with  no  part  of  His  nature 
magnified  at  the  expense  of  another  part.  Then  we  shall 
gain,  if  not  consistency,  which  is  scarcely  the  chief  considera- 
tion in  the  study  of  so  profound  a  truth  as  the  Incarnation, 
at  any  rate  the  reality  of  that  Christ  whom  we  would  preach. 
In  the  third  place,  those  who  accept  the  Jesus  of  history 
sometimes  suppose  that  His  humanity  necessarily  limits  His 
divine  nature,  and  by  the  one-sidedness  of  their  conception 
rob  the  doctrine  of  His  Person  with  one  hand  while  enriching 
it  with  the  other.  The  true  view,  I  venture  to  think,  is  the 
exact  reverse.  No  lines  can  be  drawn  here,  nor  any  dualism 
set  up.  We  cannot  say  of  the  statue,  this  is  marble,  that  is 
the  sculptor's  thought,  the  ideal  loveliness.  They  coincide, 
and  are  necessary  to  each  other.  Likewise  the  life  of  Jesus 
as  the  Christ  was  one  life.  Its  fullness,  vividness,  experience, 
character,  significance,  whether  termed  human  or  divine  for 
the  convenience  of  our  apprehension,  sprang  from  the  same 
source;  all  its  investitures  were  of  God,  Nor  will  it  do  to 
assume  that,  in  confuting  the  conclusions  of  the  Gnostic 
heresy,^*  the  apostles  were  unwarranted  in  applying  to  Jesus 

"Hebrews  ii:  17. 

1*  There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  authorities  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  references  in  the  New  Testament  to  Gnostic  heresies.  Lightfoot, 
for  example,  affirms  their  presence,  while  Hort  sees  "no  evidence  of 


THE  SCRIPTUEAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      35 

the  prerogatives  of  "the  Christ."  At  Caesarea  Philippi  the 
Master  deliberately  advanced  beyond  the  functions  of  Teacher 
and  Healer  and  asserted  His  Messianic  dignity.^'  He  knew 
the  varied  history  of  the  title,  and  the  hopes  it  had  excited 
only  to  disappoint  them.  Those  hopes,  of  which  the  most 
memorable  expression  in  prophecy  was  the  portraiture  of  the 
** Suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah,"  which  emerged  from  the 
travail  of  the  Exile,  had  filled  the  hearts  and  stimulated  the 
activities  of  the  Hebrew  people.  In  spite  of  adversity  and 
postponement  they  were  earnestly  entertained.  Yet  such  was 
the  national  pre-occupation  of  Israel  when  Jesus  appeared, 
that  even  the  Baptist  failed  to  recognize  in  the  Nazarene  the 
advent  of  the  long-expected  Deliverer,  and  voiced  his  un- 
certainty in  the  query,  "Art  thou  he  that  cometh,  or  look 
we  for  another  ? "  ^"^  In  discarding  the  merely  national  ele- 
ments of  the  Messianic  character,  Jesus  spiritualized  and 
universalized  the  Messianic  mission,  and  demonstrated  that 
its  glory  was  realized  and  reflected  in  His  own  Person. 

His  uniqueness  has  a  distinction  entirely  its  own,  inde- 
pendently of  corroborative  teaching.  He  left  the  fields  of  His 
peaceful  ministry  for  those  of  combat  with  the  powers  of 
ecclesiastical  hierocracy  and  Roman  rule.  Here  took  place 
the  fateful  transition  into  that  generic  idea  of  the  Divine 
Saviour  "Who  was  delivered  up  for  our  trespasses,  and  was 
raised  for  our  justification, ' ' "  which  separated  Him  from  all 
the  prophets  of  Israel.  At  their  height  these  seers  were  still 
merely  God's  humble  messengers.  The  Messiah  who  hovered 
on  the  verge  of  their  religious  and  political  horizon  was  no 
more  than  His  chief  messenger,  and  had  no  relation  in  their 
thought  or  intention  with  the  cosmic  Christ  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. It  is  with  this  Christ  that  you  are  chiefly  concerned, 
the  universalized,  glorified  Son  of  God;  Saviour  and  Judge  of. 

Gnosticizing  tendencies"  among  the  primitive  churches  "but  only  a  dan- 
gerous fondness  for  Jewish  trifling  both  of  the  legendary  and  casuistical 
kind." 

15  St.  Matthew  xvi :  13  ff. 

16  St.  Matthew  xi:  3. 
IT  Romans  iv :  25. 


36  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

men.  In  Him  is  the  purpose  of  all  time,  the  moral  efficiency 
of  all  men,  the  spiritual  plenitude  of  all  life.  Yet,  as  has  been 
remarked,  had  modern  censorship  existed  in  Scriptural  eras, 
perhaps  one  set  of  entries  would  have  omitted  the  later  de- 
velopment of  His  consciousness;  another,  His  miracles  of 
physical  healing;  a  third,  the  references  to  His  humanness. 
But  He  is  depicted  by  those  to  whom  He  revealed  Himself 
most  openly  in  these  and  other  phases  of  His  being,  which 
they  enumerate  without  any  attempt  to  reconcile  them.  Their 
one  tremendous,  fervid  idea  of  Jesus,  which  melted  every- 
thing else  with  resistless  ardor,  and  resolved  all  lesser  dis- 
tinctions in  its  emotional  and  spiritual  content,  was  first  de- 
rived from  His  own  teaching,  afterwards  inculcated  by  St. 
Paul,  for  whom  the  real  Jesus  was  the  Risen  Christ,  and  still 
later  by  St.  John,  who  mediated  the  Immanence  of  God 
through  the  Logos. 

Am  I  too  bold  in  claiming  that  this  teaching  is  the  core 
of  all  Scriptural  revelation  and  religion,  old  or  new,  and  of 
the  truth  and  right  they  severally  and  unitedly  contain?  I 
think  not,  since  the  witness  of  the  Church  supports  the  af- 
firmation that  the  theophanies  of  the  Old  Testament,  the 
doctrines  of  the  New  Testament,  and  whatever  in  them  ap- 
peals to  the  highest  faculties  of  man  and  delivers  him  from 
sin,  are  summed  up  in  the  manifold  meaning  of  Christ  as  the 
Word  of  the  Father.  I  earnestly  advise  you  to  proclaim  this 
truth,  in  which  the  supreme  issues  of  your  ^nessage  meet.  It 
gives  a  new  meaning  to  the  whole  of  life,  human  and  divine, 
wherein  Christ  lives  and  reigns  through  the  Eternal  Spirit. 
"The  Father  loveth  the  Son  and  showeth  him  all  things  that 
Himself  doeth. ' '  ^*  This  is  the  primal  claim  of  the  Chris- 
tian revelation,  on  which  its  language  of  confession,  its  wor- 
ship, and  its  exhortation  are  based.  For  if  Christianity,  thus 
viewed,  cannot  consolidate  the  race  in  Christ,  and  redeem  it 
by  His  mediatorship,  it  means  nothing  more,  and  does  noth- 
ing more  than  any  other  literary  Faith. 

The  object  of  this  discussion,  however,  is  not  theological 

18  St.  John  V :  20. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      37 

exposition,  but  to  ascertain,  as  far  as  is  possible,  the  preaching 
values  of  a  correct  Christology.  I  have  mentioned  the  three 
presentations  of  the  Person  of  Christ  which  are  most  gen- 
eral because  He  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  whatever  you 
have  to  offer  to  the  Church  and  the  world.  To  return  to  His 
preaching  methods,  they  differed  from  all  other  kinds  in  their 
revelatory  character,  which  gave  His  message  its  unique 
supremacy.  Much  that  He  said  was  expressed  in  parables 
familiar  to  the  daily  experience  of  His  hearers,  and  enforced 
by  metaphors  taken  from  their  surroundings.  This  simplicity 
of  treatment  was  exactly  suited  to  the  statement  of  divine 
truths,  into  whose  depths  the  most  acute  minds  have  cast 
their  plumb  lines  only  to  find  them  unfathomable.  He  spoke 
with  a  "  timeless  voice  to  the  permanent  needs  of  men"  in  the 
oracular  forms  common  to  Oriental  discourse,  and  left  what 
He  imparted  in  situ:  the  gold  of  virgin  ore  which  His  dis- 
ciples were  afterwards  to  mine,  smelt  and  circulate.  The 
more  elastic  movements  of  preaching,  often  forbidden  by 
routine  and  circumscribed  divines,  were  recognized  and  pro- 
vided for  by  Him.  All  truth  was  His  sphere,  and  when  you 
are  firmly  attached  to  His  Person  and  His  Gospel  you  also 
are  free  to  move  in  every  area  of  reality.  Like  every  other 
great  work  of  God,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  cannot  be  under- 
stood and  applied  in  a  limited  period.  It  has  in  it  elements 
of  ageless  strength,  which  will  not  be  at  the  beck  and  call 
of  human  impatience ;  and  it  resembles  the  creative  processes 
which,  never  hastening,  never  resting,  inevitably  accomplish 
their  mission.  Besides  a  divine  simplicity  and  profundity, 
there  is  in  the  preaching  of  our  Lord  infinite  variety  with  one 
consistent  aim,  and  all  inclusive  sympathy  accompanied  by  un- 
swerving fidelity.  These  traits,  or  others  equally  remarkable, 
are  the  spontaneous  sources  of  words  which  were  indeed  spirit 
and  life — the  vocal  expressions  of  the  Divine  will  that 
men  "may  have  life,  and  may  have  it  more  abundantly."  ^' 
Although  Nicodemus  testified  truly  of  the  works  of  Jesus,  he 
did  not  probe  to  the  center  of  His  power,  as  did  St.  Peter 

19  St.  John  x:   10. 


38  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

with  the  pathetic  query,  **Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou 
hast  the  words  of  eternal  life. ' '  ^°  Here  you  will  find  the 
eclipse  of  physical  miracle  and  the  essence  of  Christ's  au- 
thority over  the  souls  and  consciences  of  men.  He  drew  them 
to  Himself  by  the  truths  He  enunciated  and  made  radiant  in 
the  light  of  His  personality.  To  believe  them  and  to  love 
Him  will  bring  the  preacher  into  the  presence  of  God. 
From  the  auspicious  hour  when  He  stood  in  the  synagogue  at 
Nazareth  and  read  from  the  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  to  the 
close  of  His  earthly  ministry,  He  was  intent  upon  the  genera- 
tion in  human  hearts  of  the  life  He  shared  with  the  Father. 
The  duplication  of  this  purpose  is  the  rationale  of  your 
preaching,  and  those  who  shrink  from  it  should  recall  that 
"he  builds  too  low  who  builds  beneath  the  sky." 

Further,  the  Gospel,  as  Jesus  proclaimed  it,  has  nothing 
to  hide:  it  is  of  the  day,  not  of  the  night;  the  light  of  life 
eternal  shines  in  and  through  it,  and  renders  mere  expedi- 
ents superfluous.  The  defensive  armor  of  an  apologetic  is 
not  its  main  protection,  as  some  thinkers  who.  are  bogged  in 
their  favorite  metaphysic  would  have  us  suppose.  Only  the 
inexperienced  advocate  will  show  willingness  to  rely  too  ex- 
clusively upon  their  formulas.  The  strength  of  that  Evangel 
is  in  its  faithful  affirmations;  its  seed  is  in  itself;  it  will 
speedily  demonstrate  the  value  of  its  proclamation  wherever 
this  is  given. 

The  distinction  between  Jesus  as  Teacher  and  Preacher, 
which  places  emphasis  upon  the  former  office,  can  be  pushed 
too  far.  Assuredly  He  -was  the  Teacher,  developing  His  doc- 
trine by  educational  methods  in  those  who  were  ignorant  of 
His  message  and  in  others  who  were  in  training  for  its  dis- 
semination. Yet  He  looked  beyond  the  knowledge  He  im- 
parted to  the  character  that  knowledge  was  intended  to  orig- 
inate. It  was  not  alone  the  instructed,  but  also  the  regen- 
erated spirit  which  He  sought.  His  precepts  were  creative  of 
the  recipient's  vital  experience,  and  became  a  saving  grace 
as  well  as  an  evident  reality.    As  Teacher,  Jesus  dealt  with 

20  St.  John  vi :  68. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      39 

an  ethic  not  peculiar  to  Christianity;  as  Prophet,  He  com- 
municated the  spiritual  dynamic  without  which  neither  the 
highest  knowledge  nor  the  emotions  it  kindles  can  be  trans- 
lated into  life  and  action.  The  teaching  phase  of  His  min- 
istry was  blessed  indeed;  but  what  shall  be  said  of  its  in- 
spirational nature  ?  Here  His  soul  absorbed  other  souls  in  an 
enduring  fellowship  of  creative  love,  and  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  this  fellowship  should  be  the  ruling  factor  in 
your  heralding  of  His  Evangel. 

There  is  not,  nor  could  there  be,  a  higher  Christology  than 
that  of  apostolic  preaching.  The  writers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment maintained  that  the  perfect  human  holiness  of  Jesus 
was  assured  by  His  union  with  the  Father,  although  some  of 
His  Divine  attributes,  according  to  St.  Paul,  were  consciously 
held  in  abeyance.  It  was  part  of  His  sacrifice  that  He  should 
refuse  to  know  as  man  what  He  could  not  learn  while 
tabernacled  in  the  flesh.  Yet  being  sinless,  He  was  emanci- 
pated from  the  bondage  sin  inflicts  upon  the  spiritual  ap- 
prehension, and  this  accounted  for  His  infallible  knowledge 
of  Divine  truth.  Further,  the  apostolic  epistles  assume  that 
those  to  whom  they  are  addressed  are  already  acquainted  with 
the  elementary  facts  and  realities  of  the  Christian  revelation. 
They  very  rarely  affirm  in  so  many  words  or  state  in  categor- 
ical forms  that  our  Lord  was  divine.  But  that  they  believed 
in  His  divinity  as  they  did  in  the  air  they  breathed  is  shown 
in  their  multiform  assumptions  of  its  reality:  in  the  value 
they  attach  to  His  sufferings  and  death,  and  by  their  trust 
in  His  mercy  and  justice  as  the  Saviour  and  Judge  of  the 
world. 

It  was  not  the  human  Jesus  upon  whom  St.  John  and  St. 
Paul  concentrated  their  thought  and  exposition,  but  the  Only 
Begotten  and  exalted  Son  of  God.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel  there 
is  no  account  of  His  helpless  infant  years,  of  His  growth  in 
wisdom  and  stature;  no  limitation  of  His  knowledge  or  His 
power.  Here  He  knows  and  foreknows  everything:  He 
chooses  to  lay  down  His  life  and  to  take  it  again.  The  dis- 
courses, the  miracles,  the  narratives  of  the  evangelist,  alike 


40  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

expound  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  and  are  designed  to 
bring  out  its  various  aspects.  For  St.  Paul,  Jesus  is  the 
cIkwv  of  God,  the  archetype  of  the  ideal  world,  the  irpwroTOKo? 
TTctCTT/s  KTio-eoDs,  by  WhoHi  all  things  were  made,  in  Whom  they 
cohere,  by  Whom  they  will  be  reconciled  and  judged.  The 
Christology  of  St.  Paul  exceeds  the  Petrine  confession  in  its 
use  of  terms  born  of  the  revelation  he  had  directly  received 
of  God  and  also  from  his  love  of  Christ,  an  intensely  vital 
and  personal  relation  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history 
of  discipleship.  James  Robertson  Cameron  says  of  it,  *'Love 
is  essentially  the  sense  of  personality;  and  where  love  is 
life,  as  in  the  soul  of  Paul,  it  speaks  in  language  suit- 
able to  personality  alone.  Hence  amid  the  forms  in  which 
the  thinker  had  perforce  to  clothe  his  thought,  and  which 
vary  with  their  time,  are  the  forms  and  phraseology  of  love 
welling  from  a  depth  which  time  can  never  touch,  and  which 
belong  to  the  immemorial  speech  of  prayer.  "^^ 

When  St.  John  and  St.  Paul  had  exhausted  every  category 
at  their  disposal,  they  still  felt  that  these  were  utterly  inade- 
quate to  express  the  pregnant  Personality  of  Jesus,  and  the 
other  New  Testament  writers  shared  their  conviction.  If  the 
Hebrew  seer  in  imagination  assembled  every  Israelite  at  Mount 
Sinai  for  the  giving  of  the  law,  the  Apostles  summoned  the 
world  to  Calvary  and  to  the  garden  of  the  Resurrection. 
Christ's  Atonement  for  sin.  His  victory  over  death.  His 
eternal  sovereignty  were  the  themes  of  their  preaching.  The 
Kingdom  of  God  was  merged  in  the  Son  of  God,  the  heavenly 
Christ.  Where  they  showed  comparative  indifference  to  de- 
tails of  the  Galilean  ministry,  it  was  because  they  had  es- 
tablished an  even  more  direct  means  of  access  to  the  Redeemer 
than  through  the  reports  of  His  earlier  disciples.  The  earthly 
life  of  the  Christ,  Whom  St.  Paul  would  no  longer  know 
after  the  flesh,  was  an  interval  of  humiliation  for  the  sake  of 
man,  which  lay  between  His  preexistence  in  the  form  of  God 
and  the  enthronement  that  followed  it.  St.  John  gives  no 
place  to  the  Kenosis:  Divine  glory  and  power  continually 

21  The  Renascence  of  Jesus,  p.  12. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      41 

radiate  from  the  Only  Begotten  One,  and  the  beloved  disciple 
asserts  the  divinity  of  his  Lord  almost  more  explicitly  than 
does  even  St.  Paul. 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  the  supreme  medium  of  communica- 
tion, and  belief  in  the  diffusion  of  His  power  through  the 
Christian  mind  as  well  as  by  special  visitation  was  common 
to  the  members  of  the  apostolic  Church.  From  Him  they  re- 
ceived a  baptism  of  illumination  which  produced  the  New 
Testament  and  built  the  Ecclesia.^^  The  meditative  insight 
of  St.  John,  for  whom  the  Incarnation  fulfilled  all  life  by 
evolving  in  men  the  highest  being;  the  dialectical  energy  of 
St.  Paul,  who,  after  his  experience  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
naturally  dwelt  upon  the  effect  of  the  death  of  Christ  in  de- 
stroying the  reign  of  sin ;  the  sobering  ethic  of  St.  James ;  the 
stirring  exhortations  of  St.  Peter ;  the  bold  contrasts  made  by 
the  writer  of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  between  the  Old  and 
the  New  Covenants;  and  the  visions  of  the  Apocalypse  were 
alike  the  result  of  this  Divine  charisma  upon  their  varied 
temperaments  and  historic  and  experimental  knowledge  of 
Jesus.  In  becoming  speculative,  they  did  not  cease  to  be 
practical.  The  world  was  continually  before  them,  charged 
with  implications  which  the  era  intensified  to  the  last  degree, 
and  it  was  for  them  the  battle  ground  of  the  eternities. 
Moral  forces  determined  the  issues  which  baffled  emperors  and 
philosophers.  The  whole  creation  was  spiritually  idealized, 
and  gained  a  hitherto  unheard-of  splendor  and  importance, 
of  which  Christ  was  the  pivotal  Personality  and  the  everlast- 
ing Conqueror. 

By  these  and  other  developments  of  doctrine  the  Apostles 
expounded  the  teaching  of  Jesus  concerning  Himself,  His  re- 
lations with  the  Father,  with  mankind,  and  with  the  eterni- 
ties. They  viewed  His  earthly  existence  as  an  unprecedented 
manifestation  of  that  Divine  Wisdom  and  Love  which  live 
and  move  where  Time  is  and  also  where  Time  is  not.     When 

22  Cf.  The  Spirit.  The  Relation  of  God  and  man  considered  from 
the  Standpoint  of  Recent  Philosophy  and  Science.  Edited  by  B.  H. 
Streeter. 


42  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

His  earthly  stay  was  terminated  He  reentered  His  perma- 
nent home,  and  there  received  the  reward  of  His  great  ad- 
venture in  the  authority  He  exercises  over  the  new  moral 
creation  which  is  His  Church. 

It  is  not  germane  to  our  aim  to  discuss  at  length  the 
legitimacy  of  this  process  of  development  which,  as  you  may 
recollect.  Cardinal  Newman  skillfully  employed  in  his  de- 
fense of  traditional  theology.  Those  who  assert  that  it  was 
the  result  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit,  by  Whose  ministry 
the  Apostles  interpreted  the  historical  Jesus  in  terms  of  the 
Graeco-Jewish  philosophy  of  religion,  and  thus  satisfied  the 
expanding  needs  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  have  a  con- 
siderable weight  of  testimony  upon  their  side.^^  Doubtless 
much  that  had  been  germinal  in  the  Living  Word  then  blos- 
somed and  bore  fruit.  The  implicit  merged  into  the  explicit, 
the  potential  became  active  and  grew  in  proportion  to  the 
pressure  of  events,  drawing  upon  contemporary  systems  for 
their  ways  and  means  of  expression.  When,  for  example,  in 
the  fourth  Gospel  the  introspective  heart  of  the  Apostle  went 
beyond  the  synoptic  teaching  and  substituted  for  the  theo- 
cratic idea  of  the  Kingdom  the  idea  of  the  eternal  life  of  its 
subjects  through  vital  union  with  the  Incarnate  Word;  or 
again,  when  St.  Paul  turned  to  those  juridical  procedures  by 
which  he  enforced  justification  by  faith,  the  difference  be- 
tween them  and  also  between  their  teaching  and  that  of  the 
Synoptics  was  unmistakable.  But  are  these  variations  of 
necessity  a  derogation  of  the  Divine  truth  of  the  Gospel  in 
which  its  ethic  is  supplanted  by  purely  theological  concep- 
tions? Not  a  few  scholars  answer  in  the  afiirmative,  and 
speak  disparagingly  of  the  process;  others  enthusiastically 
endorse  it.  Our  main  interest  in  the  controversy  is  that  of 
the  preacher  who,  while  resolutely  concerned  for  the  validity 
of  his  message,  is  also  free  to  retain  his  discretionary  rights 
in  judging  methods  of  interpretation,  and  need  be  shut  off 
from  nothing  in  Divine  revelation  which  can  make  him  "ap- 

23  Hort  denies  the  presence  of  any  Greek  influence  in  the  Apostolic 
mind  and  doctrine.     See  his  Judaistic  Christianity. 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  BASIS  FOR  PREACHING      43 

proved  unto  God,  a  workman  that  needeth  not  to  be  ashamed, 
handling  aright  the  word  of  truth. ' '  ^*  When,  as  Principal 
Denney  has  reminded  us,  critics  complain  that  St.  Paul  is 
unintelligible,  or  that  he  expounds  Christianity  in  a  way  which 
does  it  every  kind  of  injustice,  and  is  entirely  inadmissible, 
we  wonder  if  those  who  make  these  rash  assertions  are  aware 
that  the  Apostle  had  undergone  a  transforming  experience, 
which  is  the  classic  of  evangelical  apologetics,  before  he  made 
a  single  speculation  upon  it.^^  His  argument  was  the  out- 
growth of  his  vital  contact  with  Christ :  his  epistles  were  the 
product  of  that  contact,  and  the  note  of  passionate  convic- 
tion which  it  inspired  vibrates  through  every  line.  Are  we 
to  infer  from  these  objections  that  Christianity  would  have 
been  advantaged,  had  St.  Paul  and  his  fellow  Apostles  not  felt 
and  reasoned  as  they  did?  On  the  contrary,  the  success  of 
their  propaganda  exemplifies  afresh  the  grateful  truth  that 
difficulties  agitated  by  academic  discussion  subside  when 
transferred  to  the  jurisdiction  of  history. 

In  conclusion,  great  souls  are  an  epitome  of  the  race,  and 
in  such  souls  as  St.  Paul,  St.  John  and  their  colleagues  it  was 
born  anew  to  religious  opportunities.  They  were  the  first  to 
reflect  the  Everlasting  Light  which  has  illuminated  the  world ; 
the  universal  diffusion  of  which,  but  for  them,  might  have 
been  indefinitely  postponed.  Deprived  of  the  physical  pres- 
ence of  the  Christ  Who  was  "the  lodestar  of  their  one  de- 
sire"; thrown  upon  a  cruel  and  merciless  society;  confronted 
by  a  proud  pantheistic  paganism,  and  by  the  turpitude  of  a 
social  system  trembling  on  the  verge  of  dissolution,  they  never- 
theless lodged  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  in  the  heart  of 
mankind,  built  the  Church,  wrote  the  New  Testament,  and 
pushed  their  embassy  to  the  frontiers  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
Through  their  ambassadorship  the  Odyssey  of  Divine  Re- 
demption has  been  written  into  the  records  of  men  and  na- 
tions, and  from  it  have  arisen  those  great  commonwealths 

2*11  Timothy  ii:  15. 

25  Principal  James  Denney :  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Reconciliation, 
p.   179. 


44  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

which  have  advanced  every  lawful  freedom.  Translate  these 
facts  into  your  own  conception  of  the  nature  and  triumph  of 
the  Apostolic  Evangel  and  into  the  vernacular  of  to-day,  and 
you  will  discover  that  it  was  the  life  derived  from  their 
Incarnate  Lord,  which  made  the  tent-maker  of  Tarsus  and 
the  fishermen  of  Galilee  trustees  of  His  Mission  and  spiritual 
guardians  of  the  Christian  Dispensation. 


CHAPTER  II 

PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 

CHURCH 


And  he  gave  some  to  be  apostles;  and  some,  prophets;  and  some, 
evangelists;  and  some,  pastors  and  teachers;  for  the  perfecting  of 
the  saints,  unto  the  work  of  ministering,  unto  the  building  up  of  the 
body  of  Christ:  till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  fullgrown  man,  unto 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ. 

Ephesians  iv :  11-13. 


CHAPTER  II 

PROPHETS   AND    PREACHERS   OF    THE   CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 

golden  age  of  preaching — St.  Chrysostom — St.  Augustine — A 
period  of  decline — Revival  under  St.  Bernard — The  friars — 
Wycliffe — Savonarola — The  Reformation  period — Preaching  in 
the  seventeenth  century — ^Wesley — ^Whitefield — Jonathan  Ed- 
wards— The  Evangelicals — Schleiermacher — Eminent  American 
and  British  preachers. 


The  orientation  of  the  apostolic  mind  became  the  predis- 
posing power  of  Christian  preaching,  enabling  it  to  avoid 
stagnancy  and  confusion,  and  to  sustain  a  progressive  minis- 
try of  New  Testament  truth.  Although  the  broadly  distribu- 
tive influence  of  that  mind  has  defied  theory  or  definition,  we 
know  that  the  Apostles,  who  were  not  elected  by  the  Church 
but  were  instrumental  in  her  creation,  gave  to  her  ordained 
servants  the  living  spirit  and  literature  which  no  sacerdotal 
hypothesis  has  yet  fully  apprehended.  The  essence  of  the 
Gospel  they  formulated  was  rendered  available  for  every 
tongue  and  has  been  made  vocal  to  mankind.  In  this  is  the 
organic  nexus  between  them  and  every  ambassador  of  God. 
We  do  not  inherit  the  canonical  extension  of  an  apostolate 
which  died  with  the  last  of  the  Twelve,  but  our  maintenance 
of  their  mission  is  in  itself  the  most  substantial  witness  to  the 
spiritual  realities  communicated  by  the  Apostles.  The  visible 
ways  and  means  of  faith  and  doctrine  which  insure  the  evan- 
gelical fellowship  of  believers  are  confirmatory  of  your  au- 
thority as  preachers.  They  have  given  proof  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  your  ofiice  without  overtaxing  credence,  and  in  spheres 
amenable  to  the  laws  of  evidence.  The  inner  world  of  the 
human  heart  and  conscience,  which  is  infinitely  greater  than 

47 


48  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  farthest  spaces  of  the  physical  universe,  has  been  more 
profoundly  moved  toward  goodness  by  Christian  preaching 
than  by  any  other  agency  of  the  Church.  This  statement  is 
demonstrable  in  the  motives,  the  ideals,  and  the  external  in- 
stitutions of  benevolence  and  justice  which  that  preaching 
has  created.  Its  functions  operated  from  the  first,  and  help 
to  explain  the  remarkable  growth  of  the  new  Faith  recorded 
in  the  Book  of  Acts.  Eusebius,  commenting  in  his  Ecclesias- 
tical History  upon  this  growth,  declared  that  the  disciples 
built  up  the  superstructure  of  the  churches,  the  foundations 
whereof  the  Apostles  themselves  had  laid,  everywhere  prose- 
cuting the  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  sowing  the  seeds  of 
heavenly  doctrine,  and  leaving  their  own  coasts  to  do  the 
work  of  evangelists  among  those  who  had  never  heard  of  the 
Redeemer.  I  propose  to  name  some  of  the  chief  figures  in 
this  succession  of  saints,  confessors  and  advocates,  which  has 
continued  until  the  present  time  and  will  endure  to  the  end. 
The  treatment  must  necessarily  be  somewhat  discursive.  For 
it  is  not  my  task  to  expound  the  psychological  and  philosophi- 
cal elements  involved  in  the  evolution  of  Christian  thought 
and  preaching,  or  to  analyze  the  different  sources  of  revela- 
tion, tradition,  dogma,  reason  and  experience,  from  which 
they  derived  their  various  forms.  These  questions  belong  to 
those  more  competent  teachers  who,  in  Bacon's  happy  phrase, 
"visit  and  uncover  their  foundations  and  fountains,"  a 
process  in  which  one  who  is  not  an  expert  is  apt  to  be  an 
intruder.  If  some  periods  and  preachers  are  apparently 
slighted  or  even  left  out  of  account  altogether,  it  is  because 
space  forbids  the  mention  of  any  except  those  identified  with 
specific  changes  in  the  development  of  your  vocation.  It  may 
be  said  in  parenthesis  that  the  development  goes  behind  the 
New  Testament  Dispensation,  unifying  Hebrew  and  Gentile, 
prophet,  apostle  and  preacher  in  a  logical  sequence  that  can 
be  readily  traced.  In  prophecy,  thus  comprehensively  viewed, 
imperfect  methods  have  evolved  less  imperfect  ones,  and, 
correspondingly,  higher  forms  of  advocacy  have  recapitulated 
lower  forms.     The   self-correcting   character   of  your   ofl&ce 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS       49 

keeps  it  in  its  appointed  orbit,  and  makes  you  more  or  less 
consciously  subordinate  to  it.  The  chief  object  of  this  brief 
sketch  of  the  prophets  and  preachers  of  the  Christian  Church 
is  so  to  stimulate  your  appreciation  of  them  and  their  work, 
that  you  may  be  induced  to  familiarize  yourselves  with  the 
spacious  backgrounds  in  which  they  moved,  and  be  made  more 
fully  aware  of  the  unspeakable  honor  and  responsibility  that 
attend  the  Christian  ministry. 

The  extraordinary  advance  of  Christianity  aroused  the  hate 
of  Judaism  and  the  resentment  of  the  Roman  government: 
formidable  foes  against  which  the  first  apologists  contended 
as  writers  rather  than  preachers.  Justin  Martyr,  however, 
left  a  reputation  as  a  debater,  and  Tertullian's  impetuous 
strength  was  by  no  means  limited  to  defensive  tactics.  Cy- 
prian was  a  forcible  speaker,  and  in  his  Epistle  to  Donatus 
he  insisted  upon  the  wisdom  of  cultivating  a  simple,  unpre- 
tentious style.  But  it  was  Origen  who  introduced  a  radical 
change  in  homiletics,  of  which  the  sermons  of  his  predecessors, 
so  far  as  can  be  ascertained  from  the  few  specimens  extant, 
had  given  no  hint.  His  choice  Biblical  expositions,  their 
thorough  design  and  pertinent  treatment,  were  the  product 
not  of  the  era  but  of  the  man ;  and  one  may  discern  between 
their  lines  the  indications  of  a  larger  knowledge  and  a  more 
gracious  zeal  than  they  actually  express.  The  sermons  of  the 
Fathers  who  followed  the  Apologists  reached  their  climax 
during  the  fourth  century  and  the  first  half  of  the  fifth,  a 
period  which  is  rightly  regarded  as  the  golden  age  of  preach- 
ing in  the  Nicene  Church.  It  ceased  to  be  formal,  abstract, 
disputatious,  and  became  elucidative,  proclamatory,  even 
dramatic.  The  patronage  of  the  State,  although  mischievous 
in  other  directions,  supplied  a  needed  dignity  to  the  pulpit, 
and  the  increase  of  educational  facilities  furnished  it  with  a 
more  competent  ministry.  Forensic  eloquence  was  on  the 
wane;  political  orators  had  ceased  to  charm;  and  the  people 
turned  to  the  masters  of  Christian  discourse  with  an  avidity 
which  implied  their  high  quality.  In  the  Eastern  Church 
Eusebius  of  Csesarea,  Athanasius  of  Alexandria,  Cyril  of  Je- 


50  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

rasalem,  among  the  orthodox,  and  Ulfilas,  the  missionary  to 
the  Goths,  together  with  Arius  the  heresiarch,  among  the 
Arians,  were  alike  distinguished  for  their  notable  expansion 
of  preaching  ideals.  The  three  Cappadocians,  Basil  of  Caesa- 
rea,  his  brother  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  his  friend  Gregory 
Nazianzen  showed  by  their  broad  culture,  penetrative  insight 
and  felicity  of  expression,  that  the  ambassador  of  God  could 
enforce  upon  men  the  principles  and  laws  of  moral  and  re- 
ligious life. 

The  prince  of  them  all  was  St.  John  of  Antioch,  better 
known  as  Chrysostom — the  "golden-mouthed" — a  name  bor- 
rowed from  Dion  of  Prusa  and  applied  to  the  great  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  soon  after  his  death  because  of  his  singu- 
larly chaste  and  lofty  eloquence.  His  prophetic  instinct  sur- 
mounted every  hindrance,  and  his  command  of  the  inevitable 
word  made  him  the  exponent  of  Christian  truth  in  the  state- 
lier forms  of  Hellenic  oratory.  Born  of  aristocratic  parentage 
at  Antioch  about  347  a.  d.,  the  future  prophet  and  bishop  of 
the  Eastern  Church  owed  much  to  his  noble  mother  Anthusa, 
a  woman  renowned  for  her  Christian  piety,  who  guarded  him 
against  the  vices  of  one  of  the  most  splendid  yet  dissolute 
centers  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  directed  his  precocious 
aptitudes  toward  those  virtuous  habits  which  her  own  life 
exemplified.  His  intimacy  with  his  schoolmate  Basil,  of  whom 
little  is  known,  and  the  counsel  of  Meletius,  the  godly  bishop 
of  his  diocese,  seconded  her  efforts.  A  constant  search  of  the 
Scriptures  during  his  monastic  discipline  intensified  his  de- 
sire to  preach,  and  such  was  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held 
by  his  brethren  that  he  was  offered  the  bishopric  before  his 
ordination  to  the  priesthood.  The  undimmed  radiance  which 
made  him  one  of  the  first  six  luminaries  of  the  pulpit  shone 
on  believers  and  unbelievers  alike,  and  Christians  of  every 
persuasion  have  found  in  him  a  healing  and  a  guiding  light. 
"He  speaks  and  writes,"  said  Cardinal  Newman,  "as  one  who 
was  ever  looking  out  with  sharp  but  kindly  eyes  upon  the 
world  of  men  and  their  history,  and  hence  he  has  always 
something  to  produce  about  them,  new  or  old,  to  the  pur- 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  51 

pose  of  his  argument."  His  sermons  were  nothing  less  than 
religious  events  of  primary  importance;  and  their  hold  upon 
the  spiritual  imagination  persists  unweakened  among  homi- 
letical  students  to  this  hour.  Although  like  Origen  he  was 
one  of  the  first  of  the  Fathers  to  enlist  in  behalf  of  the  Gospel 
the  classic  traditions  which  were  entirely  appropriate  to  the 
lucidity  of  his  reasonings  and  the  choiceness  of  his  rhetoric, 
this  unaccustomed  harness  sat  lightly  on  evangelical  truth 
because  of  the  support  of  his  native  genius.  The  play  of  his 
trained  and  powerful  mind  was  suffused  with  the  equanimity 
the  Greeks  called  x«P'«j  ^  quality  which  usually  wins  an  audi- 
ence. Yet  neither  that  quality  nor  his  fertility  of  conception 
or  splendor  of  diction  gave  him  his  permanence.  This  was 
due  to  his  prompt  seizing  of  the  situation,  his  massing  of  the 
array  of  divine  verities,  his  alliance  with  facts  familiar  to  the 
people,  and  most  of  all,  to  the  resistless  onfall  with  which  he 
swept  forward  to  secure  his  objective.  Nothing  could  quench 
his  love  for  God  and  man,  nor  lessen  the  outflow  of  his  soul, 
nor  relax  his  will  to  serve  his  generation.  No  great  poet  ever 
rounded  out  his  practice  to  the  boundaries  of  his  conception 
more  completely  than  did  St.  Chrysostom  in  his  preaching; 
and  what  in  the  majority  of  divines  remain  unrealized  ideals 
became  in  him  actual  attainments.  He  was  small  of  stature 
but  of  impressive  presence  and  demeanor,  with  every  accent 
of  authority  and  appeal  in  voice  and  gesture.  He  won  the 
reverence  of  his  fellow  citizens,  not  only  by  his  heart  search- 
ing or  consoling  exhortations,  but  by  his  blending  of  vision 
and  practicality,  his  generous  charity,  disinterestedness,  and 
the  fortitude  which  enabled  him  "to  sit  unclouded  in  the 
gulf  of  fate." 

In  the  Western  Church  the  renowned  Bishop  of  Hippo,  St. 
Augustine,  was  the  one  preacher  who  reached  the  eminence 
of  St.  Chrysostom.  Their  names  shine  as  twin  stars  in  the 
prophetic  firmament  of  the  Church  and  rain  a  lasting  influ- 
ence upon  her  ambassadors.  St.  Augustine  stood  in  direct 
succession  to  Tertullian,  who  had  his  fervor  without  his  tran- 
quil massiveness  of  mind,  and  to  St.  Cyprian,  whom  he  ex- 


52  AMBASSADOKS  OF  GOD 

ceeded  in  breadth  if  not  in  spirituality.  His  strong  masculine 
nature  made  no  concession  to  soft  urbanities,  nor  did  he  sacri- 
fice the  religious  development  of  men  to  their  mere  approba- 
tion. Note  this  aspect  of  his  ministry,  for  it  is  probably  his 
principal  bequest  to  the  preacher.  The  inflexible  determina- 
tion of  St.  Augustine's  intellectual  and  moral  processes  gave 
intrinsic  value  to  his  thought  and  utterance.  These  took 
manifold  ways  but  the  urgency  that  impelled  them  was  al- 
ways present,  and  never  more  so  than  under  adverse  circum- 
stances and  in  threatening  crises.  Time  has  reversed  some 
of  his  verdicts,  but  neither  his  fondness  for  allegory  nor  his 
occasional  carelessness  of  preparation  could  obscure  the  orig- 
inality and  profundity  of  his  thinking,  the  force  of  his 
presentation,  or  the  devoutness  of  his  mysticism.  The  wisdom 
which  clarifies  abstruse  themes  because  it  is  rooted  in  holiness 
was  another  of  his  gifts.  He  excelled  in  the  statement  of  basic 
truths  which  no  subsequent  growth  of  knowledge  can  change ; 
his  arguments  glowed  with  burning  ardor,  and  frequently 
aroused  a  favorable  response  not  only  in  sympathetic  but  in 
hitherto  alienated  hearers.  He  gave  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Jesus  Christ  a  new  distinction,  and  indicated  fresh  methods 
and  avenues  for  its  proclamation.  In  estimating  him  as  a 
preacher,  you  should  remember  that  he  was  also  a  theologian, 
a  commentator,  a  controversialist,  an  ethical  philosopher,  an 
ecclesiastical  statesman,  and  a  bishop  burdened  with  the 
administrative  duties  of  office ;  in  brief,  the  most  alert  and 
universal  intellect  of  the  ancient  Church,  with  a  versatility 
of  talents  and  a  wealth  of  genius  which  have  been  unsurpassed 
since  the  apostolic  age.  Best  of  all,  he  was  one  of  the  few 
really  great  men  who  have  loved  God  with  a  consuming  pas- 
sion. A  disciple  of  St.  Paul,  his  youthful  career  resembled 
that  of  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  in  that  he  was  ' '  pressed  on 
every  side,  yet  not  straitened;  perplexed,  yet  not  unto  de- 
spair; pursued,  yet  not  forsaken;  smitten  down,  yet  not 
destroyed. ' '  ^  Rescued  from  the  folly  of  his  youth  by  Divine 
intervention,  his  experiences  are  delineated  in  the  well-known 
1 II  Corinthians  iv:  8,  9. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS        53 

Confessions  which  should  be  studied  by  every  preacher.  They 
depict  a  very  puissant  nature  enmeshed  in  vice,  but  liberated 
by  the  grace  of  God  through  the  entreaties  and  prayers  of 
his  devoted  mother,  Monica,  and  the  admonitions  of  St.  Am- 
brose of  Milan. ^  In  his  darkest  wanderings  he  came  to  the 
place  of  illumination  and  peace,  where  in  his  vision  he  saw 
before  him  the  sacred  writings,  and  heard  the  voice  command- 
ing him,  "Tolle,  lege;  tolle,  lege" — ''Take  up  and  read." 
This  he  did,  and  to  such  purpose  that  after  his  conversion, 
in  his  thirty-second  year,  he  made  Scripture  the  absolute 
test  of  faith  and  doctrine.  Of  all  the  leaders  of  the  Patristic 
period  none  was  more  Biblical  in  practice  than  this  en- 
cyclopedic African  Father  who  embodied  an  epoch,  created 
a  school  of  prophecy,  recast  the  creeds  of  Christendom  in  a 
legal  and  philosophic  mold,  and  stamped  his  personality  and 
ideas  upon  the  religious  development  of  the  last  fifteen  hun- 
dred years. 

After  the  altitudes  of  St.  Chrysostom  and  St.  Augustine 
there  came  a  prolonged  era  of  depression,  during  which  the 
experimental  realities  of  religion  were  displaced  by  a  deism 
similar  to  that  which  has  recurrently  stultified  theology  and 
preaching.  The  fanciful  treatment  of  Holy  Writ,  the  ex- 
cessive recital  of  hagiologies,  and  an  infatuated  veneration  for 
saints  and  martyrs  obsessed  the  clergy  of  the  Eastern  Church. 
Polemics  were  rampant,  and  the  bigotries  of  an  exclusive  type 
of  ecclesiasticism  coincided  with  a  marked  decline  in  mission- 
ary zeal.  When  Christianity  is  thus  harassed,  forbidden 
either  to  improve  its  apparatus  or  to  extend  its  domains,  such 
is  its  incurable  vitality  that  it  tends  to  degeneracy  rather 
than  to  petrifaction,  and  wastes  upon  dissensions  and  ab- 
normalities what  was  meant  for  the  regeneration  of  the  race. 
Such  was  the  case  during  the  time  in  question,  when  the 

2  St.  Ambrose  was  scarcely  surpassed  in  eloquence  by  his  famous 
disciple,  St.  Augustine,  and  was  excelled  by  none  in  courage.  His 
refusal  of  the  Eucharist  to  the  Emperor  Theodosius  until  he  had  done 
penance  for  his  ruthless  massacre  of  the  people  of  Thessalonica  is  an 
instance  of  that  fearless  resolution  so  characteristic  of  this  stalwart 
defender  of  the  Faith. 


54  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

manna  denied  to  the  destitute  corrupted.  The  world  lay  in 
a  chaos  choked  with  the  debris  of  former  empires  and  civiliza- 
tions, out  of  which  arose  the  tortuous  beginnings  of  medise- 
valism.  Lawlessness,  internecine  war  and  universal  agitation 
grimly  testified  to  the  federal  strength  of  the  Roman  Empire 
even  in  its  decadence,  and  to  the  loss  sustained  by  its  fall. 
Treading  on  the  heels  of  these  calamities,  the  Mohammedan 
hosts  first  invaded  Europe,  and  their  conquests  augmented 
the  weight  of  judgment  upon  the  general  depravity.  The 
Christian  pulpit  was  dumb  and  apparently  dead ;  what  articu- 
lation it  gave  to  the  Gospel  came  from  the  Eternal  City, 
where  the  Holy  See  slowly  gathered  to  itself  the  remnants 
of  religion,  government  and  organized  society.  Leo  the 
Great  and  Gregory  the  Great  were  pontiffs  whose  pulpit  ad- 
vocacy earned  the  appellation  given  them.  Under  papal 
auspices  heralds  of  the  Cross  were  dispatched  to  every  land, 
a  vigorous  policy  which  bore  fruit  in  the  missions  of  such 
pioneers  as  Saints  Patrick,  Columba,  Augustine,  Wilfrid, 
Gallus  and  Boniface.  But  the  erection  of  a  hierarchical 
absolutism  upon  the  foundations  of  Rome's  political  su- 
premacy engrossed  the  intellects  which  might  have  adorned 
the  pulpit.  "The  gods,"  said  Homer,  ''ever  give  to  mortals 
their  apportioned  share  of  reason  only  on  one  day."  And 
this  was  emphatically  the  day  of  the  legislator,  the  scribe,  the 
ritualist:  they  compiled  the  liturgies  and  enacted  the  laws  of 
that  imposing  structure  which  for  the  next  eight  hundred 
years  was  destined  to  be  the  bulwark  of  Christendom  and 
its  court  of  final  appeal.  Prophecy  was  supplanted  by  the 
higher  clericalism  which  had  its  exemplification  in  Hilde- 
brand  and  Innocent  III;  and  when  after  a  lapse  of  seven 
centuries  preaching  moved  out  of  its  eclipse  and  received  a 
semblance  of  recognition,  it  had  been  reduced  to  the  shadow 
of  its  former  self,  a  febrile  thing,  without  animation  or  in- 
terest. The  clergy  herded  together  because  they  lacked  the- 
ological independence  of  mind  and  dreaded  the  dangers  of 
standing  alone.  Cloistral  and  parochial  sermons  were  tissues 
of  puerility,  consisting  mainly  of  monkish  legends  and  super- 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS       55 

stitious  tales.  The  homiletie  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 
so  Biblical,  so  replete  with  evangelical  truth  and  experience,  so 
capable  of  bringing  men  to  God,  was  either  forgotten  or  neg- 
lected. 

This  partial  recovery  of  prestige  by  the  preaching  office  pre- 
luded a  belated  upheaval,  which  occurred  with  the  rise  of  the 
Scholastic  theology,  the  sweeping  reforms  of  Hildebrand,  and 
the  proclamation  of  the  first  crusade  by  Urban  II  and  Peter 
the  Hermit.  The  twelfth  century  began  with  an  aurora  of 
light  which  faded  away  in  the  fourteenth.  Yet  while  it  con- 
tinued, the  Church,  awakened  from  her  chiliastic  dreams,  re- 
joiced in  the  ministry  of  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  whose 
name  is  esteemed  by  Latin  Christianity  next  to  that  of  St. 
Augustine ;  of  Jacques  de  Vitry,  whose  word  moved  France  as 
she  had  not  been  moved  in  the  memory  of  man;  of  the  two 
mystics  of  St.  Victor,  Hugo  and  Richard,  who,  like  Henry  of 
Lausanne,  preached  a  consoling  gospel  to  the  poor  and  needy. 
The  long  lingering  radiance  of  St.  Bernard,  who  is  affection- 
ately entitled  ''the  last  of  the  Fathers,"  is  inseparably  asso- 
ciated with  the  once  desolate  valley  which  he  and  his  fellow 
Cistercians  transformed  into  a  garden  of  the  Lord.  He  en- 
tered it  an  abbot  twenty-four  years  old,  at  the  head  of  a  band 
vowed  to  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.  While  he  lived  this  austere 
discipline  was  strictly  observed,  and  from  his  retreat  at 
Clairvaux  his  message  reached  in  ever- widening  circles  all  the 
countries  adjacent  to  France.  He  was  the  trusted  friend  and 
adviser  of  popes,  monarchs,  bishops,  the  lower  clergy  and  the 
plain  folk.  Nothing  which  affected  the  honor  of  Christ  seems 
to  have  escaped  his  attention,  and  his  absorption  in  the  labors 
of  his  international  ministry  delivered  him  from  the  perils  of 
solitary  religion.  A  wise  statesman  of  the  Church  and  a  great 
ambassador  of  God  to  a  turbulent  age,  St.  Bernard  summarized 
mediaeval  preaching  as  Michel  Angelo  did  the  Renaissance  in 
art  and  Danton  the  French  Revolution  in  politics.  His  re- 
fined appearance,  clear  and  far-reaching  voice,  melodious  ac- 
cent, freedom  from  professional  affectation,  fecund  imagina- 
tion, pungent  rebuke,  discriminating  praise,  and  subtle,  per- 


56  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

vasive  spirituality,  gave  him  a  moral  authority  which  enabled 
him  to  vanquish  the  violent  Count  of  Aquitaine  and  dispense 
the  Gospel  to  the  multitudes.  The  humility  of  his  heart  sur- 
passed the  vigor  of  his  mind  and  the  wideness  of  his  fame. 
The  Spirit  of  God  rested  upon  St.  Bernard;  he  received  an 
unction  from  the  Holy  One.  The  Emperor  Conrad  took  from 
his  hand  the  banner  which  led  the  second  crusade ;  and  what 
was  of  much  greater  consequence,  the  populace  received  the 
evangel  of  Christ  from  his  lips.  His  beautiful  piety  had  in 
it  the  winsome  and  haunting  quality  peculiar  to  the  highest 
sanctities  of  medievalism.  It  is  revealed  in  the  hymns  he 
wrote,  which  have  been  translated  from  the  Latin  into  English, 
and  are  now  sung  by  Christians  of  every  shade  of  belief. 
They  take  us  back  to  the  peaceful  monastery  of  Clairvaux :  to 
the  beautiful  valley  where  this  consecrated  monk  imparted 
luster  to  his  every  thought  of  Jesus. 

The  mendicant  Orders  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic  rap- 
idly brought  mediasval  preaching  to  its  meridian;  and  with 
their  decadence  it  sank  into  an  equally  rapid  decline.  While 
it  was  still  in  the  ascendant,  the  friars  labored  assiduously,  en- 
nobling your  vocation  with  the  majestic  intellect  of  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  the  Christ-like  lives  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  St. 
Antony  of  Padua,  Berthold  of  Regensburg  and  Francis  Bona- 
ventura.  For  a  space  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Fraticelli,  those 
brothers  of  the  lowly  Nazarene  who  forsook  all  and  followed 
Him,  promised  to  bend  stiff-necked  ecclesiasticism  to  its  will 
and  bring  the  world  nearer  the  goal  of  righteous  obedience. 
But  with  their  increase  of  earthly  substance  and  power  the  Or- 
ders rapidly  deteriorated,  and  their  members  became  the  ob- 
jects of  public  reproach  and  scorn.     The  visions, 

"Fairer  than  the  evening  air, 

Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars," 

which  men  in  daily  contact  with  the  beatific  holiness  of  the 
youth  of  Assisi  had  found  credible  faded  in  the  cold  light  of 
mundane  actuality  when  that  rare  spirit  was  withdrawn  from 
the  earth.     Those  who  bore  his  name  and  posed  as  advocates 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  57 

of  his  purest  ideals,  while  living  on  a  naturalistic  level,  precipi- 
tated the  incoming  of  carnal  forces  against  which  they  made 
but  an  empty  show  of  resistance.  Their  fraternities  were 
eaten  up  with  impiety,  treason  and  hypocrisy.  Yet,  though 
prophecies  fail,  ' '  charity  never  f aileth, ' '  and  the  superhuman 
example  of  sacrificial  service  manifested  in  the  ministry  of  the 
earlier  friars  has  repeatedly  invigorated  the  Church  in  all  her 
branches. 

The  prelude  to  the  Reformation  was  sounded  by  a  relatively 
obscure  recluse,  Marsiglio  de  Mainardino,^  who  indited  in  his 
cell  the  treatise  Defensor  Pads,  which  anticipated  much  we 
deem  modern  in  spirit  and  form.  Out  of  the  twilight  in  which 
Wycliffe  moved  as  the  last  of  the  Scholastics  and  the  first  of 
the  Reformers,  the  ''Evangelical  Doctor"  further  developed 
the  doctrine  for  which  Marsiglio  and  John  of  Jandun  had 
been  condemned  as  heretics.  Himself  a  notable  preacher, 
Wycliffe  prized  the  spoken  Word,  and  sent  out  his  "poor 
priests, ' '  the  true  successors  of  the  earlier  friars  and  the  fore- 
runners of  Wesley 's  itinerants,  to  every  hamlet  and  cross-road 
in  the  island  Kingdom.  It  was  his  lot,  however,  to  be  as  one 
born  out  of  due  time  and  to  have  to  attack  evils  and  abuses 
at  a  moment  when  their  abolition  was  all  too  likely  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  worse  evils  and  abuses.  He  had  to  deal  with  the 
Plantagenets,  whose  disposition  was  correctly  symbolized  by 
the  leopards  on  their  shields,  and  with  a  nation  not  yet  mor- 
ally matured  for  his  daring  projects.  He  forsook  the  Court 
and  clung  to  the  people  during  the  woes  brought  upon  them 
by  a  spontaneous  and  widespread  revolt  which  was  quenched 
in  blood.  But  he  confessed  that  he  often  stammered  out 
meanings  he  could  not  always  make  clear.  Nothwithstanding 
his  self-abnegating  loyalty  to  a  nascent  democracy,  in  which 
he  presents  a  favorable  contrast  to  Luther's  subsequent  con- 
duct under  somewhat  similar  conditions,  Wycliffe  was  deficient 
in  those  constructive  talents  which  are  essential  to  the  stability 

>  Marsiglio  de  Mainardino  is  distinguished  by  the  best  authorities 
from  Marsilius  of  Padua,  although  in  the  British  Museum  Catalogue 
they  are  identical.     The  former  was  a  canon  of  Padua  in  1316. 


58  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  reform.  Whatever  the  faults  of  the  Church,  and  their 
name  was  legion,  she  had  been  built  up  by  the  untold  pains 
and  labors  of  the  past.  His  oscillations  between  what  he  de- 
plored in  her  and  what  he  could  not  formulate  for  her  puri- 
fication indicated  how  vividly  he  reflected  the  transitions  of 
his  time  and  seemed  to  consign  his  opinions  to  defeat  and 
oblivion.  But,  although  rejected  at  home,  he  was  vindicated 
abroad,  where  in  Bohemian  Protestantism  Hus  raised  the  illus- 
trious Englishman's  creed  to  the  status  of  a  national  faith. 
The  burning  of  his  exhumed  bones  and  of  the  living  body  of 
his  disciple  by  the  incensed  hierarchy  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance accomplished  nothing  that  was  not  entirely  favorable 
to  the  intrepid  enterprise  of  both  Reformers.* 

Savonarola,  after  the  fashion  of  Melchizedek,  was  a  solitary 
beacon  blazing  in  the  pulpit  with  a  courage  and  a  naturalness 
which  met  their  usual  fate  of  suppression  and  martyrdom. 
George  Eliot  has  given  in  Romola  a  keen  analysis  of  the  man 
and  his  environment,  his  sources  of  strength  and  weakness, 
his  personality  and  his  preaching  gifts,  and  has  shown  how 
at  times  he  was  flesh  and  blood  and  again  spiritual  steel. 
With  consummate  skill  she  indicates  the  disillusionment  which 
fell  upon  him.  The  Fra  Girolamo  of  San  Marco,  whom  the 
Piagnoni  heard  with  ecstasy,  retired  to  his  little  cell,  a  prophet 
fallen  from  his  high  estate.  He  who  had  once  been  king  and 
more  than  king  in  Florence  lived  to  be  hooted  through  the 
streets  and  was  with  difficulty  preserved  from  the  rage  of  the 
disappointed  mob.  God,  Whom  he  had  invoked,  had  not 
arisen,  nor  had  His  enemies  been  scattered.  Savonarola  had 
given  to  the  city  the  best  years  of  his  heart 's  love  and  restless 
labors;  night  and  day,  in  health  and  sickness,  he  had  been  at 
her  call.  He  had  even  been  ready  to  supply  her  with  the 
miraculous  exhibition  for  which  she  clamored ;  but  for  all  this 
service  and  subjection  she  paid  him  with  insults  and  threats. 
Perhaps  there  mingled  in  his  bitter  disappointment  at  this 
sequel  an  aching  wonder  whether  it  would  have  been  better 
for  him,  the  higher  soul,  to  have  taken  upon  him  robust  Fra 

*  See  author's  The  Three  Religious  Leaders  of  Oxford,  pp.  5-170^ 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS        59 

Domenico's  part  and  proved  his  faith  by  devoting  himself  all 
alone  to  the  fire. 

None  of  these  reformers  had  the  conceptual  strength  which 
enabled  Calvin  to  lay  the  granitic  foundations  of  intellectual 
Protestantism.  Nor  were  they  so  strategically  situated  as 
Luther,  whose  organ  voice  thundered  forth  the  summons  from 
captivity  to  freedom,  which  was  already  murmuring  in  the  en- 
lightened conscience  of  Europe.  Yet  when  the  day  broke, 
men  saw,  not  without  surprise,  that  the  heavenly  law  of 
adaptation  had  victoriously  shaped  the  issues  for  which  the 
pre-Reformation  prophets  pleaded.  They  kept  their  vigil 
through  a  long  and  tempestuous  night.  In  them,  as  in  the 
Mediasvalists,  the  Scholastics,  the  Friars,  the  prophetic  suc- 
cession had  been  maintained.  In  that  succession  St.  Bernard, 
St.  Thomas,  St.  Francis,  Marsiglio,  Wycliffe,  Hus  and  Savon- 
arola stand  near  to  God's  right  hand  now  because  they  were 
wedded  to  His  purpose  then. 

II 

The  Reformers  could  do  no  other  than  restore  preaching  to 
its  apostolic  honor  and  rights.  They  faced  earnest  and  re- 
ligiously disposed  people,  whom  the  new  learning  had  made 
resentful  of  ex  cathedra  dictation,  and  skeptical  spirits  who 
confused  Christianity  with  a  paganized  ecclesiasticism.  The 
stately  shrines  and  abbeys  through  which  we  gladly  enter  into 
the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  satisfy  the  one  group; 
the  traditions  they  housed  left  the  other  suspicious  and  cen- 
sorious. It  speaks  volumes  for  the  allegiance  of  the  average 
individual  to  the  essentials  of  the  Faith,  that  he  did  not  per- 
mit it  to  collapse  beneath  the  pressure  put  upon  it.  Elaborate 
rites,  gorgeous  robes,  ceaseless  chantings  and  ceremonials  were 
as  distasteful  to  the  Reformers  and  their  adherents  as  were 
the  archaic  abstractions  of  the  later  Scholastics.  Though  for- 
merly revered,  these  practices  had  been  divorced  from  the 
Evangel  upon  which  the  soul  must  feed  to  live.  They  could 
not  appease  men's  spiritual  hunger  for  the  living  bread  sent 


60  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

down  from  heaven,  nor  subdue  the  agitation  for  a  larger  meas- 
ure of  liberty  in  political  and  religious  life.  Luther  and 
those  who  learned  of  him  reverted  to  Holy  Writ  as  their  au- 
thority, and  to  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith 
as  their  vital  theme.  This  doctrine  did  not  contain  the  en- 
tirety of  the  Gospel,  but  it  gave  an  initial  assurance  of  God's 
free  and  unmerited  grace  in  Jesus  Christ  which  jeopardized 
social  and  sacerdotal  tyrannies  and  eventually  shattered  their 
supremacy.  The  schism  which  ensued  absorbed  the  ethical 
life  of  the  Renaissance  somewhat  at  the  cost  of  its  aesthetic  cul- 
ture, and  it  also  compelled  the  Roman  hierarchy  to  give  less 
attention  to  paintings,  sculpture,  or  the  building  of  magnifi- 
cent temples,  and  more  to  the  equipment  of  an  efficient  pulpit. 
The  priest  proved  unequal  to  the  emergency :  the  prophet  tore 
off  the  fetters  with  which  the  priest  had  bound  his  vocation. 
Both  parties  in  the  now  divided  Church  paid  tribute  to  preach- 
ing, and  a  mightier  race  of  theologians  and  preachers  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  John  Wild,  Luiz  of  Grenada,  Thomas  of  Vil- 
lanova  and  Carlo  Borromeo  among  the  Roman  Catholics ;  and 
Luther,  Calvin,  Melanchthon,  Zwingli,  Bullinger,  Cranmer, 
Ridley,  Latimer,  Jewel,  Bradford,  Knox,  Hamilton  and  Wis- 
hart  among  the  Reformers,  were  the  principals  of  a  list  of 
more  or  less  familiar  doctors  and  divines.  It  is  quite  impos- 
sible and,  indeed,  unnecessary  to  discuss  them  as  their  deserts 
require.  One  can  only  bestow  a  hurried  glance  here  and  there 
and  glean,  if  may  be,  some  information  for  our  advantage. 

John  Jewel  is  not  often  mentioned ;  yet  this  bishop  of  Salis- 
bury was  the  first  Anglican  preacher  of  the  Elizabethan  age. 
Nicholas  Ridley  is  better  known  for  his  heroic  martyrdom  than 
for  the  theological  guidance  he  gave  Thomas  Cranmer,  the 
maker  of  modem  Anglicanism.  Luther  and  Calvin  apart,  no 
one  of  them  has  gripped  the  popular  apprehension  more  ten- 
aciously than  John  Knox  in  Scotland,  or  Hugh  Latimer  in 
England.  The  spectacle  of  Knox  holding  forth  in  St.  Giles, 
Edinburgh,  against  the  malignancies  of  the  Papacy  or  the 
machinations  of  IMary  the  Fair,  is  very  grateful  to  Protestant 
admirers.     The  preacher  was  not  always  magnanimous  in  his 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS        61 

strength ;  the  princess  was  far  from  being  altogether  ignoble  in 
her  frailty.  Both  were  resolute  spirits  in  their  respective 
ways,  and  the  contrast  between  them  makes  a  tempting  theme 
upon  which  historians  have  not  agreed.  Though  often  in 
peril,  Knox  managed  to  escape  the  fagots.  It  was  brave  old 
Latimer  whose  story  thrills  the  heart  as  much  as  that  of  Knox 
attracts  the  historic  mind.  The  dauntless  bishop  stepped  into 
the  fire  at  Oxford  as  cheerily  as  he  had  been  wont  to  ascend 
the  pulpit  at  St.  Paul's  Cross.  He  died  as  he  had  lived, — con- 
sistent, steadfast,  courageous,  "jesting  at  the  dawn  with 
death,"  and  exhibiting  that  humor  which  is  an  unfailing  sup- 
ply of  the  moral  element  in  tragedy.  Even  at  the  stake  he 
was  still,  as  he  had  ever  been,  the  prophet  of  the  open  spaces, 
whose  preaching  took  additional  color  and  significance  from 
the  fields  and  the  farming  pursuits  of  his  yeoman  ancestors. 
The  result  of  nature,  not  of  art,  it  retains  in  print  the  racy, 
shrewd,  homely  eloquence  that  won  the  hearts  of  his  hearers; 
it  is  packed  with  current  saws  and  maxims,  redolent  of  the  soil, 
versed  in  social  practices,  and  has  no  sickly  cast  of  over-intro- 
spective thought  to  hamper  its  movement  or  mar  its  quaint 
allusions  and  biting  passages.  Neither  is  it  like  the  artless 
warblings  of  the  bird  that  never  round  a  tune.  Everything  in 
it  has  an  ostensible  end,  which  is  kept  steadily  in  view  from 
the  beginning.  When  you  are  inclined  to  use  the  speech  of 
the  plain  people,  turn  from  some  recent  claimants  of  that 
preaching  virtue  and  take  Latimer  or  Bunyan  for  your  guide. 
They  will  reward  you  as  neither  the  purveyors  of  embroidered 
phrases  nor  of  the  slang  of  gutterdom  know  how  to  do.  Both 
laid  on  lustily,  and  healed  with  skillful  tenderness  the  wounds 
they  inflicted.  Nor  did  Latimer's  preaching  wilt  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  a  licentious  court.  Above  any  Tudor  bishop  he 
rebuked  the  sins  of  his  brutal  monarch,  of  sycophantic  and 
greedy  nobles  and  of  iniquitous  judges  and  politicians. 

In  Germany  during  the  seventeenth  century,  the  weight 
attached  to  purely  intellectual  and  doctrinal  conceptions  hin- 
dered the  pulpits'  adequate  expression.  The  defects  of  cur- 
rent preaching  were  attributable  to  its  lack  of  the  sentiment 


62  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

which  fixes  thought.  Teutonic  oratory  of  the  period  was  pon- 
derous, immobile,  devoid  of  that  play  of  imagination  essential 
to  ideas  if  they  are  to  convince  the  heart  as  well  as  the  reason ; 
consequently  it  spent  itself  in  alternating  waves  of  dogmatism, 
mysticism  and  rationalism.  Thus  a  religion  which  had 
originated  in  a  revolutionizing  movement  of  faith  and  morals 
and  had  satisfied  the  spiritual  longings  of  the  preceding 
generations,  began  to  solidify  into  a  formalism  scarcely  less 
proscriptive  and  detrimental  than  the  sacerdotal  pretensions 
against  which  it  had  successfully  rebelled.  Its  freedom  was 
employed  for  the  sterilization  of  the  emotions:  it  resembled 
those  green  islets  in  tropical  seas  which  became  encrusted 
with  calcareous  accretions  on  which  nothing  can  grow.  The 
betterment  of  these  conditions  began  with  Philipp  Jakob 
Spener,  whose  pietism  was  a  protest  against  the  excessive  the- 
orizing and  spiritual  dearth  of  Lutheran  orthodoxy.  In 
southern  Germany  he  and  his  colleague  August  Hermann 
Francke  inaugurated  a  type  of  Puritanism  which  was  devel- 
oped by  Georg  Konrad  Rieger,  a  preacher  of  such  merit  that 
he  was  favorably  compared  with  Luther.  Bengel,  the  com- 
mentator to  whom  "Wesley  was  indebted  for  his  Notes  on  the 
New  Testament,  and  Mosheim,  a  learned  and  humane  scholar 
and  historian,  who  employed,  as  did  Reinhard,  an  arresting 
style,  were  other  serviceable  men  of  the  German  Church. 

In  France  the  faith  derived  from  subjective  experience  was 
voiced  by  Fenelon,  whose  sermons  owe  their  strength  to  the 
element  of  devoutness,  to  meditation  on  divine  things,  and  to 
instructive  spirituality.  He  was  an  eminently  gracious  per- 
sonality, whose  place  is  among  the  noblest  characters.  Pascal 
was  notable  as  a  Christian  philosopher  though  of  course  he  was 
not  a  preacher.  Saurin  disclosed  an  excellence  in  the  Hugue- 
not pulpit  which  rivaled  that  of  Pascal  as  a  thinker,  and  Bos- 
suet,  * '  the  eagle  of  Meaux, ' '  at  this  time  attained  those  flights 
which  made  him  the  greatest  modern  apologist  for  Roman 
Catholicism.  You  note  in  Bourdaloue  and  Massillon,  as  in 
Bossuet,  the  felicity  of  form  bespeaking  the  polite  circles  of 
somewhat  artificial  culture  in  which  they  moved.     Impressive 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  63 

as  it  is,  it  did  not  conciliate  the  antagonistic  thinkers  of 
France  nor  confute  the  acute  skepticism  and  social  unrest, 
which  afterwards  helped  to  wreck  the  French  Church.  Her 
clergy  were  implacable  against  even  the  shadow  of  doubt,  and 
strenuously  asserted  the  definitive  authority  of  popes  and 
councils  over  matters  of  faith  and  doctrine.  Hence,  questions 
which  were  answered  in  Great  Britain  received  no  sufficient 
reply  in  France,  where  attempts  to  extirpate  heresy  and  un- 
belief served  but  to  propagate  them  in  the  epoch-making  work 
of  the  Encyclopedists.  An  unfortunate  appeal  to  physical 
force  instead  of  rational  discussion  was  characteristic  of  the 
Gallican  Church  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  prevailed 
over  Port  Royal,  and,  acting  under  the  delusion  that  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  State  required  the  unity  of  the  Church,  pre- 
cipitated the  dissolution  of  both. 

In  Great  Britain  the  Anglican  Church  has  seldom  been 
tolerant  of  those  enthusiasms  which  led  beyond  the  familiar 
range  of  a  dutiful  profession.  Her  aversion  to  extraordinary 
methods,  while  not  always  injurious,  has  frequently  relegated 
her  to  a  position  of  self-complacent  inactivity.  The  pruden- 
tial considerations  arising  out  of  a  settlement  that  was  at  best 
a  compromise  gave  her  no  sufficient  foothold  for  aggressive 
Christianity.  Those  who  subscribe  to  a  policy  of  this  type 
are  apt  to  misjudge  the  intensities  with  which  the  Christian 
Evangel  is  rife,  and  to  underrate  the  revivals  it  produces, 
which  have  an  apostolic  sanction  and  are  as  verifiable  in  their 
historical  benefits  as  any  other  phase  of  Christian  propa- 
ganda. Nevertheless,  the  leading  Anglican  preachers  of  the 
seventeenth  century  had  virtues  of  their  own ;  they  were  often 
strong  without  rage,  animated  without  militancy ;  and  if  they 
were  not  luxuriant,  neither  were  they  flamboyant.  They 
sometimes  lacked  warmth,  but  not  so  often  conviction ;  persua- 
siveness was  theirs,  if  not  passion,  and  logic,  if  not  imagination. 
To  this  school  belonged  ''the  judicious  Hooker,"  author  of 
The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity;  the  saintly  Bishop  Lancelot 
Andrewes  and  the  famous  Archbishop  Tillotson.  The  Ser- 
mons of  Andrewes  are  nearer  to  our  purpose  than  the  grave 


64  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

discourse  of  Hooker,  who  was  a  writer  of  rare  quality  rather 
than  a  preacher.  They  would  now  have  to  be  interpreted  to 
theological  students,  although  they  were  then  understood  and 
appreciated  by  the  wits  and  scholars  of  the  Stuart  court.  An- 
drewes  could  not  show  the  full  proportions  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, fcut  he  could  expound  the  premise  that  the  Lord  is  our 
righteousness  with  extensive  learning  and  delicate  scrupulosity 
of  mind.  He  took  full  toll  of  the  conciliatory  truths  of  the 
Gospel  by  extracting  the  last  trace  of  meaning  from  its  texts. 
Cudworth,  Chillingworth  and  Barrow  were  exceedingly  able 
preachers  of  an  exceptional  character,  from  whom  Robert 
South  and  Jeremy  Taylor  stood  somewhat  apart.  The  ser- 
mons of  South  had  the  sententious  boldness  and  dexterity  of 
treatment  and  phrase  which  constituted  them  literature. 
Those  of  Taylor  leaped  forth  from  the  universal  heart  of  the 
poet  who  revels  in  exquisite  analogies  for  the  pleasure  they  ex- 
cite in  his  own  mind.  Like  the  speeches  of  Burke,  they  were 
independent  of  the  particular  circumstances  of  their  delivery : 
unlike  those  speeches  they  did  not  defer  their  imageries  to  the 
moment  of  their  utterance.  Taylor  was  a  consummate  mas- 
ter of  English  prose,  whose  opulence  at  times  embarrassed 
his  exposition;  as  Canon  Simpson  observes,  it  was  the  move- 
ment rather  than  the  arrangement  of  his  pulpit  utterances 
which  made  him  so  acceptable  to  men  and  women  of  wide  cul- 
ture. I  do  not  advise  you  to  adopt  his  sermons  as  your 
models,  but  assuredly  you  should  delve  into  their  mines  of 
'wealth.  Their  profusion  of  symbolism  and  quotation  is  at 
times  perplexing,  but  this  can  be  pardoned  in  one  who  was 
first  and  last  a  prophet  endeavoring  to  convey  his  message  as 
he  received  it,  without  waiting  to  coordinate  it  with  systema- 
tized doctrine,  intent  only  upon  its  enforcement,  and  actuated 
by  a  catholicity  foreign  to  his  age. 

Nonconformists,  under  the  ban  of  the  Stuarts,  were  natu- 
rally irritated  and  well  nigh  as  inimical  as  the  State  clergy  to 
the  liberty  of  prophesying  for  which  Taylor,  after  Milton,  had 
made  the  noblest  plea.  Covenants  or  dragonades,  the  divinity 
of  creeds  or  of  kings,  were  alike  antagonistic  to  a  free  pulpit. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  65 

Yet  the  Puritan  temper  against  which  Matthew  Arnold  railed 
was  not  the  jaundiced  Philistinism  he  conceived  it  to  be.  It 
evoked  the  phenomenal  ministry  of  Baxter,  the  dreams  of 
Bunyan,  the  discourses  of  Calamy,  Howe,  Owen  and  Goodwin, 
and  determined  the  wanderings  and  voyages  of  the  Pilgrims 
of  the  Mayflower.  The  "Hebraism"  of  New  England  even- 
tually acquired  an  austere  culture  there,  and  generated  in 
Massachusetts  the  ideal  of  public  education  as  the  duty  of 
the  State.  Although  it  deserved  a  more  just  appraisal  than 
that  of  "the  apostle  of  sweetness  and  light,"  Puritanism  had 
lost  its  first  love,  and  shared  the  stultification  which  every- 
where fell  upon  Protestant  preaching.  A  conventional  ethic 
or  the  rehashing  of  stale  theological  disputes  monopolized  it. 
The  counsels  of  moderation  in  ecclesiastical  differences,  which 
men  are  slow  to  heed  in  times  of  bitter  resentment,  were  vainly 
offered  them  by  Baxter  and  a  few  like-minded  eirenical  spirits. 
Those  counsels  prevail  now  because  of  their  intrinsic  and  rea- 
sonable liberalism.  The  unity  and  mutual  understanding 
which  Baxter  labored  to  promote  are  the  keynotes  of  Christian 
progress  two  hundred  years  and  more  after  the  Savoy  Confer- 
ence, and  his  later  writings  are  entitled  to  the  reverent  atten- 
tion of  English-speaking  men. 

The  hjnnns  of  Bishop  Ken,  the  St.  Francis  of  the  Non- 
Jurors,  and  of  Isaac  Watts,  the  premier  modern  hymnologist 
in  theistic  ascription,  were  lasting  gains  in  what  was  otherwise 
a  period  of  distraction  and  cumbersome  uselessness.  Tillot- 
son,  like  his  younger  fellow  Anglican,  Atterbury,  seldom  at- 
tempted to  persuade  the  heart  until  he  had  convinced  the 
mind.  He  was  prejudiced  against  the  intimate  and  direct  in 
preaching,  and  even  his  commendations  of  Jesus  were  studi- 
ously reserved.  Notwithstanding  his  thorough  knowledge  of 
the  Scriptures,  it  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  him  that  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  could  be  stormed  by  the  violence  of  conse- 
crated passion.  His  sedate  manner  endeared  him  to  the  An- 
glican theologians  and  clerics,  and  to  statesmen  and  writers 
who  despised  enthusiasm.  He  became  the  pulpit  prince  of  his 
century,  and  his  sermons  were  translated  into  German  for 


66  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  benefit  of  the  Lutheran  clergy.  The  conservative  mor- 
alities which  propose  the  good  rather  than  the  spiritual  man 
were  his  pet  theme.  Even  Joseph  Butler,  a  vastly  superior 
intellect  to  Tillotson,  and  a  philosopher  whose  writings  dif- 
fused a  large  and  considerate  temper  in  religious  inquiries, 
had  no  wings  for  his  apologetic.  He  could  not,  or,  if  he 
could,  he  would  not  explain  the  Gospel  in  terms  of  personal 
experience.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  chiefly  instrumental 
in  crushing  skeptical  deism,  and  thus  unwittingly  prepared 
the  nation  for  the  coming  of  the  Wesleys,  whose  interpreta- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  he  sincerely  deplored.  It  was 
left  to  them  to  gather  into  the  fellowship  of  Christ  the  for- 
saken masses  whom  their  mitred  opponents  could  not  reach, 
and  to  demonstrate  that  though  the  Teaching  of  their  Lord 
had  survived  the  criticisms  of  the  recondite,  it  could  not  be 
successfully  propagated  without  an  emphatic  reassertion  of  its 
supernatural  character. 

Viscount  Morley  has  reminded  us  that  "religion  has  many 
dialects,  many  diverse  complexions,  but  it  has  one  true  voice 
— the  voice  of  human  pity,  of  mercy,  of  patient  justice. ' '  ° 
Not  since  that  voice  resounded  in  Jerusalem,  Aritioeh,  Athens 
and  Rome  had  it  been  heard  more  fully  and  convincingly  than 
from  John  "Wesley.  His  matchless  ministry,  which  was  prac- 
tically coextensive  with  the  eighteenth  century,  was  the  out- 
flow of  a  regenerated  heart,  a  susceptible  conscience,  a  benevo- 
lent intention,  an  indefatigable  zeal,  a  ceaseless  yearning  after 
the  souls  of  men.  These  great  qualities  were  accompanied  by 
his  good  works,  sagacity,  sense  of  orderliness,  reverence  and  a 
unique  gift  of  organization.  Like  St.  Augustine,  Thomas 
Bradwardine  and  Luther,  he  knew  the  religion  of  the  heart, 
and  the  account  of  his  conversion  is  another  classic  of  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith.  It  is  diflSeult  to 
overestimate  the  corrective  values  of  Wesley's  spiritual  con- 
sciousness, when  contrasted  with  the  impotent  and  patronizing 
latitudinarianism  which  denied  even  the  possibility  of  his 
transfer  into  the  realm  of  a  new  being  and  all  that  this  in- 

6  Recollections,  Vol.  I,  p.  189. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  67 

volved.  Those  corrective  values  have  become  historic  treas- 
ures of  the  world,  to  which  political  and  philosophical  writers, 
«?uch  as  Lecky  and  John  Richard  Green,  have  borne  witness, 
relating  them  to  the  religious  and  moral  progress  of  mankind. 
It  would  be  superfluous  for  me  to  attempt  a  full  delineation  of 
the  evangelist  and  statesman  of  the  modern  Church,  who  was 
also  the  foremost  personality  of  his  century  and  has  had  no 
equal  successor.  He  revealed  a  combination  of  characteristics 
seldom  found  in  any  individual,  and  unlike  many  of  the 
strong  men  I  have  mentioned,  some  of  whom  were  mentally 
his  superiors,  he  thrived  on  tumult  and  opposition.  The 
sequence  of  events  placed  him  where  his  gifts  and  graces 
were  broadened  and  consecrated  by  the  contradictions  of  his 
age,  and  enabled  him  to  utilize  the  abandoned  purlieus  of  a 
degraded  society,  which  his  brethren  had  forsaken,  for  the 
transformation  of  its  victims  into  haters  of  sin  and  lovers  of 
holiness. 

Study  Wesley  as  you  study  no  other  modern  preacher,  and 
do  this  the  more  because  a  certain  parochialism,  tinctured  with 
condescension,  is  occasionally  to  be  detected  in  Puritan  refer- 
ences to  him.  His  amazing  triumph  over  what  appeared  to  be 
insuperable  obstacles  was  not  due  to  the  profundity  which 
men  are  wont  to  connect  with  the  exposition  of  Pauline  doc- 
trine. As  we  have  seen,  the  battle  of  the  giants  had  already 
been  waged  by  Butler  and  his  fellow  thinkers  when  "Wesley 
came  upon  the  field.  His  mind  was  prosaic,  unallured  by 
those  hazardous  metaphysical  speculations  which  are  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  Calvinism.  The  boldness  of 
imagination  which  frames  theological  hypotheses  was  foreign 
to  his  mental  habit.  He  brought  to  the  Gospel  of  the  New 
Testament  the  phrase  that  upraises,  the  feeling  that  is  most 
intense  when  most  repressed,  and  the  rational  simplicity  and 
lucidity  of  a  typical  eighteenth  century  scholar.  His  sermons 
contained  much  in  little ;  their  form  was  concise,  their  mean- 
ing perspicuous,  their  effect  far  deeper  than  that  of  con- 
temporary orations  of  renown.  He  compelled  a  dissolute 
epoch  to  admit  that  Justification  by  Faith  was  more  than  a 


68  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

theological  term ;  that  it  was  nothing  less  than  a  spiritual  re'- 
creation  of  the  human  heart,  which  could  not  be  fully  ex- 
plained in  any  language,  however  apposite.  This  primary 
service  of  preaching  was  accomplished  amidst  nearly  every 
facility  for  treacherous  and  despicable  traits,  and  in  the  full 
view  of  leaders  of  Church  and  State  who  evinced  a  lamentable 
indifference  to  the  moral  and  social  welfare  of  English-speak- 
ing nations.  It  kindled  a  revival  of  New  Testament  Christi- 
anity in  an  instinctively  religious  people,  and  restored  their 
consciousness  of  God.  Learned  inquiry  has  seldom  been  con- 
genial to  the  religious  phenomena  which  that  revival  pro- 
duced ;  nevertheless,  though  they  remain  among  the  mysteries 
of  the  spiritual  realm,  they  accomplished  the  purification  of 
individual  and  social  life.  When  you  are  tempted  to  forego 
evangelicalism,  and  to  fall  back  upon  legalism  or  sacramen- 
tarianism,  recall  the  higher  clergy  of  the  eighteenth  century 
who  did  this,  and  compare  their  present  oblivion  with  the  dig- 
nity and  honor  of  the  religious  Archimedes  of  his  time:  the 
Oxford  cleric  who  discovered  in  his  experience  of  Divine  grace 
the  leverage  with  which  he  seriously  proposed  to  lift  the  lost 
and  the  profligate  not  only  to  decency  but  to  God.  Our 
troubled  future,  about  which  we  hear  so  many  varying  fore- 
casts, may  have  to  wait  for  another  anointed  servant  of  the 
Lord,  who,  like  Wesley,  will  transcend  the  chaos,  and  be 
borne  upward  to  the  freedom  and  the  power  of  a  religious 
renaissance  as  the  angel  of  the  Churches. 

The  outburst  of  sacred  song  which  heralded  the  Evangelical 
Revival  was  a  further  token  of  its  life-giving  power.  Accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Martineau,  Charles  Wesley's  hymps  are,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Scriptures,  the  grandest  instrument  of  pop- 
ular religious  culture  Christendom  has  produced.  John  Bake- 
well,  Edward  Perronet  and  Thomas  Olivers,  among  others, 
also  enriched  the  praise  of  the  sanctuary  with  their  lyrical 
compositions.  The  emotional  side  of  the  Revival  received  its 
climax  at  the  moment  from  the  pulpit  eloquence  of  George 
Whitefield,  who  had  that  art  of  mingling  the  infinite  with  the 
commonplace,  which  is  one  requisite  of  effective  preaching. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  69 

His  fame  is  largely  a  matter  of  tradition  which  emphasizes  his 
histrionic  exuberance  and  marvelous  voice.  Yet  these  do  not 
unfold  the  secret  of  Whitefield's  ministry.  Truths  he  could 
neither  formulate  nor  cast  in  literary  fashion  were  fused 
within  him  by  his  glow  of  soul  and  expressed  with  fluid  en 
ergy.  Even  the  small  change  of  discourse  was  reminted  by  his 
volcanic  manner.  He  quelled  the  mob  with  a  gesture,  and 
charmed  Garrick,  the  foremost  actor  of  the  day,  by  his  pathos 
in  the  utterance  of  a  single  word.  Springing  at  a  bound  from 
a  state  of  pupilage  to  one  of  absolute  pulpit  mastery,  he  re- 
tained his  ascendancy  despite  episcopal  inhibition  and  re- 
buke. While  outwardly  inclined  to  extravagance  and  to  the 
sacrifice  of  the  rational  to  the  emotional  side  of  preaching, 
he  was  kept  from  pretentiousness  and  cant  by  his  poignant 
sense  of  personal  unworthiness  and  of  the  wonder  of  redeem- 
ing love.  He  exalted  God  until  everything  pertaining  to  law, 
duty  and  conduct  became  strangely  solemn  and  momentous. 
In  his  exordiums  and  perorations  there  was  but  a  step  from  the 
sublime  to  the  ridiculous  yet  he  never  took  it.  Dr.  "W.  L. 
Watkinson,  one  of  our  few  surviving  great  preachers,  explains 
this  restraint  as  due  to  Whitefield's  visualization  of  the  real- 
ity of  sin,  the  certainty  and  terror  of  its  retribution,  the 
priesthood  of  Christ  in  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  and  the  restora- 
tion of  the  penitent  to  the  favor  of  God.  These  themes  were 
the  burden  of  his  sermons,  which  might  have  been  modified 
in  certain  respects,  but  probably  at  the  expense  of  his  influ- 
ence upon  the  people.  For  he  was  neither  a  philosopher  nor 
a  theologian,  but  what  is  more  uncommon  than  either,  an 
evangelist  who  could  quicken  the  religious  spirit  of  a  mori- 
bund generation.  Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  the  pulpit  than  a 
science  of  homiletics  which,  like  Browning's  dying  gram- 
marian, speaks  its  last  word  to  correct  minor  details,  but  does 
not  insist  upon  the  most  adequate  means  of  presentation. 
Whitefield's  gifts  in  this  respect  were  unique  and  cannot  be 
imitated,  but  his  example  is  admonitory.  It  reproves  those 
clergymen  who  mistake  restriction  for  strength,  elegance  for 
suitability,  and  decry  the  human  touch  which  would  give  pith 


70  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

and  meaning  to  their  flawless  but  speedily  forgotten  homilies. 
He  saw  the  religious  poverty  of  his  era  as  its  divines,  thinkers 
and  literati  could  not  perceive  it.  William  Blake 's  accusation 
against  the  prevalent  deism, 

"When  Satan  first  the  black  bow  bent 
And  the  moral  Law  from  the  Gospel  rent, 
He  forged  the  Law  into  a  sword 
And  spilled  the  blood  of  Mercy's  Lord,"  ^ 

was  dramatized  by  Whitefield  's  preaching.  To  him  the  cry  of 
contrition,  the  answer  of  faith,  the  opened  vials  of  judgment, 
the  horror  of  the  Crucifixion,  the  triumph  of  the  Resurrection, 
the  glory  of  the  saint,  the  doom  of  the  sinner,  were  as  real  as 
himself,  and  his  tender  appeals  and  terrific  declamations  were 
dictated  by  their  reality. 

In  America,  Whitefield 's  theological  mentor,  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, blended  power  in  thought  with  equal  power  in  speech 
and  action.  Edwards  was  a  philosopher  rather  than  a 
theologian,  who  under  different  auspices  might  have  de- 
veloped a  metaphysical  system  comparable  with  that  of  Hume 
or  even  Kant.  But  he  was  confined  to  a  narrow  and  outworn 
range  of  doctrinal  speculation  in  which  he  exercised  the  fore- 
most mind  our  nation  can  yet  claim.  He  revived  the  faltering 
fortunes  of  a  creed  conceived  under  Sinai's  shadow  rather 
than  in  the  light  of  the  Incarnation.  Despite  this  displace- 
ment of  his  extraordinary  intellectual  energies,  Edwards  was 
a  saint  of  the  purest  and  tenderest  affections,  who  built  his 
ministry  after  the  pattern  in  the  Mount.  Some  of  the  grander 
principles  of  Puritanism  found  their  organon  in  his  preach- 
ing; it  illuminated  those  fundamentals  upon  which  national 
morality  is  based,  arousing  the  godly  fear  of  men  and  quick- 
ening the  faith  and  works  of  commonwealths.  Although  his 
writings  are  tinged  with  the  natural  melancholy  of  a  far- 
visioned  and  much  misunderstood  ambassador  of  God,  they 
are  replete  with  spiritual  verities  both  subtly  suggested  and 
vividly  expressed.     The  vertebrae  of  our  freedom-loving  insti- 

» Jerusalem  Ch.  11,  11.  71-74. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  71 

tutions  is  related  to  his  teachings,  of  which  the  better  part  was 
filled  with  the  life-blood  of  a  master  spirit  who  dwelt  in  reason 
and  in  righteousness. 

The  Erskines  in  Scotland,  Herder  of  Weimar,  Lavater  of 
Zurich,  Zinzendorf  and  the  Moravians  in  Central  Europe  also 
corrected  the  religious  negligence  that  characterized  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  ordered  goodness  and  community  life  of 
Zinzendorf 's  sect  attracted  meditative  souls  averse  to  the  arid 
rationalism  from  which  the  tranquil  mysticism  of  the  Mora- 
vian Brethren  afforded  a  welcome  shelter.  They  recalled  the 
eternal  consolations  of  the  soul,  the  sacred  havens  of  its  rest, 
the  oft-forgotten  truths  that  the  meek  inherit  the  earth,  and 
that  the  spiritual  man  judges  all  things.  Their  importance 
was  ignored  by  those  who  prided  themselves  on  an  imaginary 
elevation  of  reason  produced  by  suppression  of  the  spiritual 
emotions.  The  influence  of  the  Moravians  must  be  further 
measured  by  their  contact  with  Wesley  and  other  leaders  of 
Christianity.  Thereby  they  injected  their  experience  into  the 
corporate  life  of  the  Church  and  made  their  testimony  of 
present  personal  union  with  Christ  the  animating  factor  of 
more  than  a  hundred  years  of  preaching  and  missionary  effort. 

ni 

It  has  always  been  the  weary  spiritless  epochs  that  have 
played  havoc  with  the  dreams  of  God's  prophets.  Such  an 
epoch  began  when  the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the  eighteenth 
century  passed  into  its  dogmatic  and  controversial  phases. 
Forgetful  that  the  highest  religious  expansion  cannot  be  real- 
ized in  pure  individualism,  the  exponents  of  early  nineteenth 
century  orthodoxy  stressed  the  personal  self,  locating  in  it  all 
the  possibilities  of  human  destiny.  They  pronounced  the 
eternal  ruin  of  those  who  did  not  embrace  the  doctrine  of 
Justification  by  Faith  and  held  as  strongly  as  did  Massillon 
to  the  small  number  of  the  elect.  The  High  Churchmen  of 
the  English  Establishment  were  * 'fatigued  men  of  the  world, 
if  not  of  yesterday, ' '  who  could  do  little  more  than  repeat  the 


72  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

story  of  their  descent  from  a  series  of  divines  which  began 
with  Hooker  and  ended  with  Waterland.  They  inculcated 
with  studious  moderation  a  mild  sacerdotalism,  gave  thanks 
that  their  skirts  were  clear  of  Methodistic  enthusiasm,  and 
charged  their  fellow  Churchmen,  the  Evangelicals,  who  were 
the  minority  party,  with  fostering  a  sour  pietism  which  looked 
upon  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds  as  a  waste  howling  wilder- 
ness overshadowed  by  impending  doom.  The  antipathy  with 
which  the  Evangelicals  regarded  "worldliness"  lent  color  to 
the  accusation.  With  them  it  was  not  so  much  a  reasoned 
dislike  as  a  state  of  mind,  frequently  indicated  by  a  mistaken 
contempt  for  the  beauty  of  life,  which  was  not  permitted  to 
interfere  with  their  hearty  appreciation  of  life's  material  com- 
forts. The  descendants  of  the  clergymen  who  had  incurred 
the  wrath  of  Georgian  bishops  because  of  their  zealous  propa- 
gandism  were  found  in  the  fashionable  pulpits  of  London  and 
the  provinces,  where  the  more  luxuriant  forms  of  social  inter- 
course embarrassed  their  mission.  For  while  it  may  be  com- 
paratively easy  for  a  prophet  in  camel's  hair  to  cry  Repent! 
to  the  promiscuous  throngs,  one  who  ministers  to  fastidious 
congregations  daintily  clad  needs  courage  to  insist  upon  that 
imperative  duty.  Yet  notwithstanding  its  waning  fires,  es- 
pecially in  Calvinistic  circles,  and  despite  its  repudiation  of 
the  merits  of  good  works,  Evangelicalism  conferred  upon  the 
race  those  benefactors  and  philanthropists  who,  by  their  exer- 
tions for  foreign  and  domestic  missions,  the  abolition  of  slav- 
ery, the  reform  of  drastic  penal  codes,  and  the  cleansing  of  pes- 
tilential prisons,  offset  some  of  the  inhuman  conclusions  of  its 
eschatology.  But  the  doctors  of  the  party  were  too  deficient 
in  knowledge  and  sympathy  to  furnish  the  controlling  thought 
of  the  age.  Nor  would  they  heed  the  expostulations  of  en- 
lightened men,  such  as  Lj-man  Beecher  in  America  and  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge  in  England,  who,  though  totally  different  in 
temperament  and  outlook,  were  united  in  their  plea  for  the 
rescue  of  doctrinal  propositions  from  their  root-and-branch 
defenders,  in  order  that  they  might  receive  a  place  proportion- 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  73 

ate  to  their  importance  in  the  entire  body  of  Christian  truth 
and  in  the  moral  affection  of  mankind. 

It  was  oontinental  Europe  that  provided  the  scientific 
method  for  the  re-interpretation  of  the  Gospel  and  its  relation- 
ships to  God  and  man  which  has  been  the  guide  of  modem 
preaching.  While  Wesley's  gallant  regiments  of  Arminian- 
ism  were  storming  the  citadels  of  Calvinism  in  the  eastern  sec- 
tion of  the  American  Republic  and  covering  its  western  fron- 
tier with  hardy  pioneers  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  great  Ger- 
man thinker  and  preacher  Schleiermacher  became  the  prophet 
of  another  dispensation  of  grace  and  truth,  which  effected  far- 
reaching  changes  and  ended  the  claim  of  the  Evangelicals  to 
be  the  sole  depositories  of  God's  purposes,  with  a  dialect  of 
their  own  and  an  icy  attitude  toward  outsiders.  Their  pain- 
ful literalism  and  harsh  insistence  upon  the  details  of  an 
endless  perdition  were  gradually  replaced  by  more  merciful 
and  elastic  beliefs.  This  emancipating  process  is  not  yet  com- 
plete, and  during  its  operation  many  who  gratefully  acknowl- 
edged their  indebtedness  to  Evangelicalism  were  alienated 
from  it,  and  sought  relief  either  in  more  liberal  forms  of 
Christianity  or  in  the  intellectual  narcotic  of  doubt.  The  in- 
filtrations of  German  scholarship  into  the  conditions  described 
were  discernible  in  Coleridge,  Archbishop  Whately,  Dean 
Milman,  Thomas  Arnold,  and  Connop  Thirlwall,  the  most  ju- 
dicial and  public  minded  Anglican  prelate  of  his  century. 
Their  more  critical  examination  of  original  sources  bore  fruit 
in  1829,  when  Milman  issued  his  History  of  the  Jews,  a  work 
at  least  fifty  years  in  advance  of  the  time.  It  was  the  first  de- 
cisive inroad  of  German  theology  into  England,  which  later 
found  an  entrance  in  our  own  land :  the  first  palpable  indica- 
tion that  the  Bible  could  be  treated  like  any  other  book.  If 
the  Church  had  listened  to  Milman 's  plea  and  entrusted  her- 
self to  the  guidance  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  of  all  truth,  to 
Whom  the  Scriptures  bear  a  faithful  witness.  Protestantism 
would  have  been  saved  from  many  useless  vexations. 

Schleiermacher  plunged  into  the  depths  of  religious  think- 


74  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ing  and  evolved  a  theology  of  his  own,  which  can  scarcely  be 
appreciated  without  reference  to  his  personal  history.  His 
early  contact  with  the  Moravians  imbued  him  with  an  ardent 
faith  for  which,  after  a  season  of  disquiet  and  almost  despair, 
he  endeavored  to  find  an  adequate  theory.  Possessed  of  ex- 
traordinary talents  and  versatile  accomplishments  and  spurred 
to  his  self-assigned  task  by  the  spiritual  distress  he  had  en- 
dured, he  rejected  Catholic  and  Protestant  scholasticism  alike 
and  reconstructed  his  Christian  system  under  the  aegis  of  the 
philosophies  of  Plato,  Spinoza,  Kant  and  Schelling.^  His 
celebrated  volume  Speeches  on  Religion,  which  appeared  in 
1799,  contained  the  substance  of  his  teaching,  and  is  now  more 
frequently  studied  than  at  any  previous  time.  Its  intensive 
subjectivity  revealed  a  characteristic  limitation  of  the  Teu- 
tonic mind.  Yet  not  a  few  of  the  happiest  abstractions  of  the 
scholar  were  therein  blended  with  the  fervent  aspirations  of 
the  saint,  and  what  the  work  lacked  in  perspective  was  partly 
compensated  for  by  its  mystic  and  humanistic  tone.  The 
author  penetrated  to  the  core  of  the  issues  he  discussed,  and 
aroused  emotions  which  in  turn  originated  a  series  of  reflec- 
tions concerning  the  significance  of  the  individual  and  the 
functions  of  intuition.  He  urged  that  all  life  was  a  revela- 
tion of  the  Universe  as  a  compact  unified  whole,  and  he  wor- 
shiped Christ  as  the  living  center  of  this  cosmic  unity.  The 
truly  divine  element  of  our  Lord's  nature  was  found,  he  as- 
serted, not  in  the  purity  of  His  moral  Teaching,  nor  in  the 
individuality  of  His  character,  but  in  "the  glorious  clearness 
to  which  the  great  idea  He  came  to  exhibit  attained  in  His 
soul.  "^  This  idea  was  that  all  which  is  finite  requires  a 
higher  mediation  to  be  in  accord  with  Deity,  and  that  for  man 
under  the  power  of  the  finite  and  particular,  and  all  too  ready 
to  imagine  the  Divine  itself  in  this  form,  salvation  is  only  to  be 
found  in  a  mediative  redemption.  He  further  contended  that 
the  divine  life  in  man  resided  in  the  emotions  and  was  as  care- 

1  Schleiermacher    had    the   receptivity   of   a    great   eclectic   combined 
with  the  reconstructive  power  of  a  profoundly   original  thinker. 
8  Speeches  on  Religion,  p.  246. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  75 

fully  separated  from  dogmatic  authority  as  it  was  from  ethical 
precepts.  Religion  thus  became  independent  and  supreme  as 
an  ineffable  communion  between  the  heart  and  its  Maker,  and 
vindicated  for  itself  its  own  sphere  and  its  own  character. 
The  relation  of  theology  to  philosophy  or  science  was  neither 
one  of  dependence  nor  opposition  but  of  complete  freedom, 
distinct  functions  and  ultimate  harmony.  When  religion  had 
raised  itself  beside  all  knowledge,  the  whole  field  was  for  the 
first  time  completely  filled  and  human  nature  perfected.  This 
reasoning  transferred  spiritual  things  from  metaphysics  to 
psychology  and  based  their  authority  upon  the  attested  experi- 
ences of  the  devout.  Outward  standards  could  not  bind  the 
religious  man  within  whose  breast  and  nowhere  else  the  Divine 
law  registered  its  absolute  decrees.  Hence  Christian  believers 
were  forever  delivered  from  their  fear  of  the  changes  which 
attend  the  expansion  of  knowledge,  and  need  be  under  no  obli- 
gation to  employ  apologetic  methods,  which,  though  stifling 
doubt,  failed  to  reach  the  truth.  Unhistorical  legends  of 
ecclesiastical  and  Biblical  infallibility  were  superfluous  accre- 
tions. A  true  zeal  for  the  redemptive  revelation  was  Christo- 
centric;  its  living  verities  were  to  be  exalted  for  their  own 
sake,  in  full  sympathy  with  but  apart  from  the  results  of  or- 
ganized knowledge.  Theology,  therefore,  was  not  speculative, 
but  expressive;  its  subject  matter  consisted  of  the  facts  of 
Christian  consciousness,  and  its  function  was  to  enumerate 
these  without  regard  to  the  problems  of  philosophy  or  the 
discoveries  of  physical  science. 

These  mystical  interpretations  of  idealism  were  interwoven 
with  the  preeminence  of  Christ  as  the  Mediator  of  the  Divine 
Immanence  and  with  the  principle  of  the  fellowship  of  be- 
lievers in  the  life  of  faith.  The  growth  of  the  Church  as 
God's  visible  witness  in  the  world  was  not  institutional,  still 
less  hierarchical,  but  consisted  in  the  expanding  congregation 
of  faithful  souls  in  whose  solidarity  the  indwelling  Spirit  ad- 
ministered one  life  and  communion.  Surely  the  unconfined 
religious  feelings  have  not  received  a  more  vigorous  and  or- 
dered expression  than  that  of  Schleiermacher.    But  it  came 


76  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

to  its  boundaries  and  occasionally  trespassed  beyond  them. 
The  tendency  to  confuse  Christian  experience  with  types  of 
fantastic  mysticism  and  to  set  it  in  contrast  to  thought  was  not 
sufficiently  governed  by  the  consideration  that  feeling  is  really 
a  form  of  thought,  and  that  will,  in  its  last  analysis,  is 
"thought  assuming  control  of  reality."  Yet,  as  I  have  said, 
to  the  German  divine  belongs  the  signal  honor  of  giving  to 
Christian  theology  release  from  its  undue  subjection  to  rival 
branches  of  learning  and  an  incontestable  supremacy  of  its 
own.  Directly  or  indirectly,  he  left  a  lasting  impression  upon 
the  Church  at  large.  Even  those  who  rightly  declare  that  he 
often  awakened  sentiments  he  could  not  satisfy  and  that  his 
prejudice  in  behalf  of  aristocratic  and  polite  society  induced 
him  to  reserve  his  teachings  for  the  cultured  classes,  concede 
the  benefit  of  his  opposition  to  the  idea  that  a  changeless  order 
is  the  culmination  of  wisdom  in  matters  of  faith.  Schleier- 
macher  was  followed  by  worthy  successors  belonging  to  his 
mediating  school,  who  continued  the  task  of  turning  the  drift 
from  rationalistic  to  emotional  channels.  Among  these  were 
Nitzsch,  the  most  prominent;  Krummacher,  poetic  and  dra- 
matic; Luthardt,  logical  and  impressionistic;  Marheineke, 
idealistic  and  scientific;  Miiller,  theological  and  Biblical;  Ull- 
man,  aesthetic  and  mystical ;  Rothe,  intellectual  and  ethical ; 
and  last  but  not  least,  Tholuck,  a  preacher  distinguished  for 
evangelical  fervor,  ethical  perception  and  practical  effective- 
ness, and  almost  as  well  known  outside  Germany  as  Schleier- 
macher.  The  Ritschlian  group  prosecuted  the  work  of  recon- 
ciling and  harmonizing  historical  Christianity  with  the  mod- 
ern mind,  and  its  representatives  have  greatly  enriched  the 
study  of  theology.  Church  history  and  Scriptural  interpreta- 
tion. Although  the  German  pulpit  is  too  effusive  in  senti- 
mentalism  and  too  prone  to  subjectivity,  the  patient  research 
and  insistence  of  German  scholarship  upon  the  primacy  of  or- 
igins have  been  controlling  factors  of  the  sacred  science  since 
Scheiermacher's  day. 

A  greater  contrast  to  the  main  features  of  the  modem  Ger- 
man pulpit  than  that  which  French  preaching  furnishes  can- 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  77 

not  easily  be  conceived.  Our  Gallican  brethren  have  always 
been  noted  for  oratorical  flights,  fervid  persuasiveness,  grace 
and  brilliance  of  diction,  and  this  notwithstanding  that  two  of 
the  most  penetrating  aijd  powerful  thinkers  of  Christian  his- 
tory, Calvin  and  Pascal,  were  Frenchmen.  Lacordaire  was 
conspicuous  among  the  pulpit  orators  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  of  the  preceding  century,  and  his  ''Conferences"  at 
Notre  Dame  in  Paris  drew  multitudes  who  were  profoundly 
moved.  Dupanloup  was  a  second  prominent  preacher  whose 
sermons  had  dignity  of  utterance  varied  by  occasional  flashes. 
Didon,  though  a  lesser  star,  shone  brightly  in  the  Madeleine, 
and  his  discourses  there  were  among  the  religious  events  of  his 
time.  Pere  Hyacinthe  possessed  unusual  speaking  powers,  his 
frank  use  of  which  was  penalized  by  his  excommunication. 
The  Protestant  pulpit  was  adorned  by  such  preachers  as  the 
scholarly  and  spiritual  Vinet,  the  Church  historian  D'Au- 
bign4,  best  known  as  a  writer  but  not  less  reputable  as  a 
forcible  preacher,  and  Adolphe  Monod,  who  won  his  hearers 
by  the  appeal  of  his  character,  his  refined  thought,  beautiful 
style  and  affectionate  earnestness. 

Your  interest  in  the  continental  pulpit  is  perhaps  only  cas- 
ual, and  I  have  referred  but  to  a  few  of  its  occupants  whose  in- 
fluence has  been  felt  within  select  circles  in  English-speaking 
lands.  When  we  extend  our  survey  to  include  the  foremost 
preachers  of  the  American  Republic  and  the  British  Do- 
minions their  great  number  and  excellence  forbid  adequate 
comment.  One  would  like  to  mention  them  all,  from  the 
ranks  of  the  departed  and  the  living  alike,  but  this  is  not 
feasible,  and  we  must  adhere  to  the  selective  principle  previ- 
ously observed,  which  confines  us  to  the  notable  exemplars  of 
the  Christian  ambassadorship  of  the  nineteenth  century  who 
are  no  longer  with  us. 

The  seven  American  clergymen  whose  preeminent  service 
swept  beyond  sectarian  boundaries  were  Lyman  Beecher,  Wil- 
liam Ellery  Channing,  Horace  Bushnell,  Charles  G.  Finney, 
Matthew  Simpson,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  Phillips  Brooks. 
The  list  could  be  indefinitely  extended,  and  probably  compe- 


78  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

tent  judges  will  regard  it  as  too  partial,  but  these  names  have 
not  been  chosen  without  reflection,  and  they  are  recorded  here 
that  you  may  study  the  biographies  of  the  men  they  represent 
and  find  the  references  of  a  grateful  Church  to  their  mem- 
ories, methods,  ways  of  thought  and  work.  Do  not  be  deterred 
from  doing  this  by  that  distrust  of  experts  which  characterizes 
Americans  in  every  walk  of  life.  Turn  from  the  lesser  breeds 
of  preachers  who  know  not  the  law  of  your  vocation  to  these 
exemplars  who  knew  and  fulfilled  it.  For  in  preaching,  as  in 
much  else,  presumption  backed  by  inexperience  is  often  a  pass- 
port to  preferment,  and  ignorance  a  title  to  self-respect.^  The 
anomalies  created  by  such  prejudices  and  also  by  those  due 
to  sectarian  narrowness  should  not  confuse  your  vocational 
estimates,  nor  prevent  you  from  following  hard  after  the  best 
representatives  of  sacred  discourse. 

The  elder  Beecher's  fame  has  been  somewhat  eclipsed  by 
that  of  his  son,  whom  he  scarcely  equaled  in  sermonic  in- 
genuity or  transcendent  speech,  but  surpassed  in  theological 
lore  and  dialectical  vigor.  His  war  on  drink  and  duelling  and 
his  plea  for  the  modification  of  Calvinistic  theories  of  human 
redemption  were  the  militant  elements  of  a  Mr.  Valiant-for- 
Truth  whose  wider  ministry  was  national  in  its  character  and 
influence.  The  courage,  resourcefulness  and  literary  endow- 
ments of  his  distinguished  children  were  derived  from  their 
father,  who  became  the  head  and  front  of  the  practicable 
liberalism  of  his  Church  and  of  the  aggressive  Christianity  of 
his  time.  William  Ellery  Channing  was  the  outspoken  pro- 
tagonist of  religious  freedom,  whose  lucid  definitions  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Humanity  of  Christ  are  now  the 
common  property  of  preaching.  He  maintained  the  rights  of 
conscience  in  questions  of  religious  belief,  over  which  ultra- 
orthodoxy  had  attempted  a  reign  of  proscription.  His  pro- 
phetic consciousness  remained  unchilled  by  the  frigid  intel- 
lectualities of  his  sect;  and  from  his  writings  and  those  of 
Dr.  James  Martineau  the  majority  of  reading  men  have  ob- 

9  Francis  G.  Peabody:  The  Religious  Education  of  An  American 
Citizen,  p.  110. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  79 

tained  their  current  ideas  of  spiritual  Unitarianism.  Horace 
Bushnell  re-asserted  for  himself  and  eventually  for  Protestant 
thinking  everywhere,  the  depth,  breadth  and  reality  of  the 
soul's  contact  with  God.  His  originality  and  initiative  were 
symbolized  by  the  continental  expanse  of  the  New  World, 
and  one  is  at  a  loss  to  know  which  was  most  admirable,  the 
wide  range  or  the  intensity  of  his  ministerial  interests.  They 
embraced  well-nigh  every  social  and  religious  problem  and 
touched  nothing,  however  commonplace,  which  they  did  not 
elevate.  His  preaching  was  always  essentially  prophetic,  the 
product  of  life,  thought  and  knowledge  harmoniously  inter- 
woven, full  of  unexpectedness  and  of  the  advantages  of  an 
audacity  that  only  the  strong  and  well-furnished  man  can 
safely  indulge.  The  very  titles  of  his  sermons  are  often 
minor  theses;  their  subject  matter  abounds  in  affirmations 
that  cannot  be  gainsaid-  The  word  of  the  Lord  in  Bushnell 's 
mouth  was  the  inspired  and  resistless  communication  to  his 
people  of  saving  realities  applicable  to  the  whole  of  existence, 
conceived  afresh  by  an  opulent  mind,  and  uttered  out  of  a 
pure  and  flaming  heart.  Charles  G.  Finney  was  of  a  wholly 
different  type  from  Bushnell  and  from  any  other  preacher  of 
pronounced  evangelistic  tendencies  except  John  Wesley.  His 
activities  as  a  preacher  were  simultaneous  with  those  of  his 
presidency  of  Oberlin  College,  and  this  union  of  duties  be- 
spoke in  him  the  scholarly  temperament  and  spiritual  ardor 
which  found  full  play  in  his  ministry.  He  brought  to  the 
pulpit  a  judicial  accent  and  legal  persistency  too  seldom 
found  in  hortatory  discourse.  His  outwardly  calm,  progress- 
ive argument  and  the  restraint  which  lent  force  to  his  appeal, 
Tjroke  down  objection,  dispelled  doubt  and  compelled  the 
surrender  of  many  of  his  prominent  contemporaries  to  Christ. 
Such  preaching  implies  that  the  permanent  effects  of  evan- 
gelistic exhortation  are  secured  by  invoking  the  reason  as  well 
as  the  emotions. 

That  seraphic  son  of  Wesleyanism,  Matthew  Simpson,  was 
not  so  profound  in  scholarship  as  John  McClintock,  nor  so 
sublime  on  occasion  as  Randolph  S.  Foster,  nor  so  distinctively 


80  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

oratorical  as  John  P.  Durbin,  nor  so  mystical  as  Bishop 
Marvin,  nor  so  profoundly  Pauline  in  his  theology  as 
Bishop  Alpheus  W.  "Wilson.  But  for  unaffected  manliness 
and  Biblical  simplicity,  depth  of  feeling  and  a  quiet  thrust 
of  moral  and  spiritual  sentiment — qualities  which  in  Simpson 
were  entirely  unhampered  by  the  critical  faculty,  and  which 
at  intervals  received  an  amazing  charisma  from  above — the 
great  Methodist  episcopos  had  no  superior.  He  ministered 
to  the  highest  and  the  lowliest  through  the  Church  of  his 
choice,  and  above  all  to  his  brethren,  the  preachers,  who  looked 
upon  him  as  their  Apollos.  Through  them  as  media  he  helped 
to  shape  the  destinies  of  this  democracy,  and  was  one  of  its 
influential  voices  audible  above  the  tumult  of  the  Civil  War. 
To  have  heard  him  at  certain  seasons  of  his  earlier  ministry, 
when  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shone  round  about  him  and  the 
power  of  God  rested  visibly  upon  him,  until  he  himself  feared 
to  enter  further  into  divine  mysteries  and  actually  desisted 
from  preaching,  was  for  thousands  of  clergymen  whom  he 
had  to  send  forth  to  hard  and  sacrificial  toil  a  divine  revela- 
tion through  the  spoken  Word,  which  armed  them  for  the 
holy  fray. 

Henry  "Ward  Beecher's  Shakespearian  imagination  was 
shown  in  all  its  regal  might  both  in  the  pulpit  and  upon  the 
platform.  Competent  authorities  rank  him  as  the  first 
preacher  of  his  century;  I  venture  to  go  further  and  place 
-him  at  the  summit  of  the  sacred  oratory  of  the  last  two  hun- 
dred years.  His  sermons  and  speeches  exhibit  a  larger  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature,  a  clearer  induction  of  the  things  which 
men  have  in  common,  and  a  more  sterling  rectitude  of  utter- 
ance than  are  found  in  most  modern  preachers.  His  clear 
vision,  passionate  devotion,  dramatic  visualization,  versatility, 
pathos,  humor  and  emotional  range  enabled  him,  after  throw- 
ing off  the  incubus  of  a  burdensome  traditionalism,  to  stand 
out  as  the  supreme  prophet  of  Christianity  for  the  generation 
he  drew  to  his  feet  and  served  so  incomparably.  A  stalwart 
physical  frame,  utmost  facility  of  expression,  free  play  of 
consummate  genius,  and  easy  naturalness  of  manner  are  sel- 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  81 

dom  found  in  any  single  individual.  Yet  Beecher  owned  them 
all,  undeflected  by  any  eccentricities.  He  arrayed  and 
manoeuvered  beneath  his  practiced  control  more  native  talents 
for  preaching  than  other  gifted  speakers  could  even  muster. 
The  animating  impulses  of  his  candid  and  sanguine  disposi- 
tion were  a  safer  guide  for  him  than  an  erudition  to  which  he 
laid  no  claim.  His  sense  of  propriety  and  of  the  proportion 
of  truth  guarded  his  fervid  denunciations,  appraisals  and  ap- 
peals from  excess.  So  alert  were  his  receptive  and  inventive 
faculties  that  they  fed  while  he  spoke,  causing  him  to  browse 
on  his  audiences  as  other  preachers  browse  in  books.  He 
gathered  from  the  common  life  of  the  people  the  provision 
with  which  he  replenished  their  rejoicing  souls  on  the  Lord's 
Day.  His  magnetic  affinity  for  all  ranks  and  conditions  of 
men  and  for  the  events  of  his  time  invested  his  pulpit  min- 
istry with  an  international  significance.  He  was  indeed  a 
very  great  preacher,  if  for  this  reason  alone,  that  he  had 
a  truly  creative  faculty.  A  sermon  by  him  leaves  an  ab- 
solutely definite  impression  on  the  mind,  as  well  as  the  con- 
viction that  this  particular  impression  had  never  been  made 
before — a  new  thing  had  been  given  to  the  world.  To  eulogize 
him  further  would  be  superfluous:  to  analyze  him  completely 
is  impossible ;  he  does  not  serve  as  a  model  for  any  other  man, 
but  as  a  perpetual  source  of  strength  and  inspiration  for  us 
all.  There  were  spots  in  his  sun,  but  it  was  a  sun,  radiating 
everywhere  the  light  of  sacred  love  and  the  warmth  of 
Evangelical  truth. 

Phillips  Brooks  excelled  in  the  catholicity  of  his  humanity, 
which  belonged  to  him  by  right  of  birth,  for  he  was  the  nearly 
perfect  fruitage  of  nine  generations  of  cultured  Puritan  stock. 
In  reading  his  biography  by  Professor  Allen,  a  book  which 
should  be  among  the  select  volumes  of  your  library,  one  is 
reminded  of  his  parallel  with  Milton 's  earlier  phase,  in  which 
the  winsomeness  and  grace  of  the  Cavalier  blended  with  the 
intellectual  masculinity  and  scholarship  of  the  Puritan.  Mil- 
ton's  resolve  to  return  to  "fresh  woods  and  pastures  new" 
was  never  fulfilled  because  his  muse  turned  sadly  from  the 


82  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

trampled  swards  of  Marston  Moor  and  Naseby.  But  the 
geniality,  the  optimism,  the  unfaltering  faith  which  character- 
ized Brooks  were  not  diminished  by  the  Civil  War  nor  other 
tragical  events.  His  preaching  genius  never  looked  back  and 
seldom  turned  within  itself  to  sadly  meditate;  to  the  last  it 
struck  the  note  of  Christian  confidence  and  fellowship  which 
echoes  to  the  doom.  Baptized  a  Unitarian,  he  was  doubtless 
influenced  by  the  intellectual  freedom  and  ethical  conviction 
of  Unitarianism.  Trained  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
of  which  he  afterwards  became  a  bishop,  even  its  broadest 
section  was  almost  too  constricted  for  his  spiritual  dimensions. 
The  ideal  of  a  sainthood  consolidated  by  liturgical  and  canoni- 
cal practice  was  subordinated  by  him  to  the  greater  sanctity 
of  the  universal  kingdom.  He  disliked  the  abstract  and  the 
philosophical,  and  foraged  everywhere  for  the  humanities  of 
which  he  became  a  genuine  apostle. 

Perhaps  you  have  felt  the  historical  part  of  these  first  two 
chapters  somewhat  wearisome,  yet  they  are  partly  vindicated 
by  the  example  of  Brooks.  He  made  no  special  mark  in  tech- 
nical theology,  but  he  thoroughly  studied  the  Fathers,  the 
classical  dramatists,  the  English  literature  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  Victorian  period,  and  the  personalities  of 
famous  men.  Like  Dickens,  he  loved  the  city  better  than  the 
country,  and  was  at  his  best  when  grappling  with  the  prob- 
lems of  community  life  and  with  the  exigent  religious  needs 
of  souls  who  had  light  enough  for  sight  but  not  for  their 
adventures  in  faith.  His  Boston  ministry  was  made  memor- 
able by  his  clear  interpretations  of  the  hidden  man  of  the 
heart,  which,  in  turn,  were  made  possible  by  his  embodiment 
of  the  highest  humanity  in  the  heart  of  God.  He  loved  men 
as  he  viewed  them  in  God,  but  he  also  had  the  greater  love 
which  saw  God  in  man.  It  is  not  strange  that  Lincoln  should 
have  been  his  mentor,  nor  that  his  synthesis  of  the  intellectual, 
ethical  and  spiritual  elements  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ  should 
have  caused  him  to  preach  the  Redeemer  as  the  great  Com- 
rade of  the  race. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  83 

IV 

Let  lis  here  briefly  mention  the  careers  of  Thomas  Chalmers, 
Robert  Hall,  John  Henry  Newman,  Frederick  W.  Robertson, 
Robert  William  Dale,  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon  and  Alexan- 
der MacLaren,  Chalmers  was  the  primate  of  a  preaching  min- 
istry which  has  maintained  the  highest  average  in  the  world. 
One  of  nature's  noblemen,  with  a  warrior-like  grandeur  and 
an  eager  strength,  he  united  boldness  with  caution,  fervor 
with  circumspection,  love  of  the  Evangel  with  love  of  learning, 
and  was  qualified  in  every  particular  to  complete  the  work 
of  Knox  by  leading  the  disruption  which  founded  the  Free 
Church  of  Scotland.  Gilfillan  praised  him  as  the  divine  of 
his  age,  and  said  that  after  he  had  ended  one  of  his  tremendous 
discourses,  the  rapt  expression  upon  his  hearers'  faces  showed 
that  though  the  wind  had  gone  down  the  sea  still  ran  high, 
Robert  Hall  was  renowned  for  a  stately  and  ornate  style  which 
has  passed  out  of  fashion.  We  are  assured  that  the  perora- 
tions of  this  school  of  preaching  are  archaic  and  its  sonorous 
periods  outgrown.  Nevertheless,  it  once  clothed  a  philo- 
sophical treatment  of  Biblical  themes,  and  should  be  of  in- 
terest to  you  because  it  commanded  wide  commendation 
at  a  time  when  the  pulpit  was  the  chief  center  of  public  in- 
struction. John  Henry  Newman's  meditations  upon  the  ever 
widening  opposition,  as  he  supposed,  between  the  Church  and 
the  world,  found  an  outlet  in  the  sermons  which  he  delivered 
at  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  in  1829.  They  enforced  his  contention 
that  things  could  not  stand  as  they  were,  that  Christ 's  Church 
was  indestructible,  that  she  must  rise  again  and  flourish,  when 
the  poor  creatures  of  a  day  who  opposed  her  had  crumbled  into 
dust.  As  a  preacher  he  was  profoundly  conscious  of  the 
saeredness  of  his  vocation,  and  in  its  fulfillment  was  unequaled 
by  any  ecclesiastic  of  his  day.  Pusey,  saint  and  recluse,  whose 
personality  for  a  time  overshadowed  Anglicanism,  Mozley, 
the  deepest  and  clearest  thinker  of  the  Oxford  group;  Man- 
ning, self-conscious,  politic,  facile  of  speech ;  Liddon,  with  the 
Italianate  profile,  orator  and  ascetic ;  were  all  preachers  of  a 


84  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

high  quality.  But  none  approached  Newman  in  his  analysis 
of  the  human  spirit,  his  exquisite  English,  his  tender  if  in- 
dignant fervor.  He  united  simple  earnestness  and  refinement 
with  a  sense  of  reserved  power  on  the  verge  of  being  released. 
"His  hearers  felt,"  said  Principal  Shairp,  "as  though  one  of 
the  earlier  Fathers  had  returned  to  earth."  He  appealed  to 
them  with  sustained  directness,  force  and  earnestness  for  a 
lofty  spiritual  standard  to  be  seriously  realized  in  conduct, 
the  more  imperative  because  the  nation  had  come  to  the  brink 
of  religious  dissolution,  and  was  resting  complacently  in  its 
own  pride  and  might  while  divine  judgment  impended.  None 
can  feel  the  full  power  of  Newman 's  greatest  sermons  who  does 
not  trace  them  to  their  sources  in  the  Fathers.  And  if  noth- 
ing in  them  showed  his  comparative  youth  and  inexperience, 
or  immaturity  of  treatment,  it  was  because  he  could  re-clothe 
the  ancient  creeds  and  confessions  with  the  beauty  and  the 
strength  of  genuine  sacred  oratory.  His  homilies  were  not, 
as  partisans  have  alleged,  mere  wizardries  of  words,  but 
poems;  transcripts  from  the  most  inspired  souls,  as  well  as 
from  the  souls  to  which  they  ministered;  reasonings  in  an 
ethereal  dialectic,  views  of  life,  of  goodness,  of  sin  and  its 
malefic  consequences,  which  should  be  carefully  separated  from 
Newman 's  incapacitating  traditionalism  and  adroit  periphrases 
in  behalf  of  sacerdotalism.  Not  only  in  university  pulpits, 
but  in  those  of  rural  churches  he  could  employ  a  spiritual 
perception  and  a  simple  diction  which  held  village  rustics 
spellbound.  Not  as  an  Evangelical,  an  Anglican,  a  Trac- 
tarian,  nor  as  a  prince  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
but  as  a  spiritual  seer  insatiate  in  his  search  for  God,  New- 
man transcended  the  various  phases  of  his  strange  career. 
The  sweeping  changes  of  his  mind  and  circumstance  brought 
him  little  satisfaction.  After  he  had  renounced  things  he 
dearly  loved  and  proved  "How  salt  the  savor  is  of  other's 
bread,"  his  religious  philosophizings  were  his  consolation. 
They  are  found  in  all  his  writings  aglow  with  the  Divine  fire, 
of  which  some  preaching  that  denounced  him  had  not  the 
feeblest  spark. 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  85 

Few  ministers  have  realized  the  ideal  of  the  Christian 
preacher  more  fully  than  did  Robertson  of  Brighton,  who  has 
attained  a  posthumous  eminence  unprecedented  in  the  annals 
of  the  modern  pulpit.  The  best  and  noblest  spirits  have 
found  him  a  guide  "amid  the  chances  and  changes  of  this 
mortal  life,"  and  many  souls  resort  to  his  published  sermons 
when  storm-tossed  by  inward  contentions  and  fears.  A  strain 
of  disillusion  and  disappointment  ran  through  his  life  and 
made  his  faith  the  more  vividly  realistic.  He  was  too  re- 
served, too  critical,  perhaps  too  sensitive.  Yet  this  is  meas- 
urably explained  by  the  neglect  he  experienced.  He  was  not, 
as  Bishop  Hensley  Henson  has  remarked,  the  child  of  for- 
tune ;  no  patron  smiled  on  him ;  their  honors  and  emoluments 
were  bestowed  on  lesser  clerics  who  are  now  forgotten.  He 
sought  no  interest  in  any  party  when  partisanship  was  neces- 
sary to  promotion.  He  died  while  still  young,  yet  he  had  so 
lived  and  preached  as  to  spread  the  Gospel  in  widest  com- 
monalty. At  heart  a  soldier,  he  injected  into  his  ministry 
some  of  the  virtues  of  that  profession.  His  views  were  col- 
ored by  his  military  preferences,  by  his  ardent  longings  for 
his  country's  safety;  and  he  was  wont  to  say  that  to  meet 
death  in  a  righteous  cause  was  the  most  enviable  of  fates. 
Robertson  saw  in  the  manhood  of  his  Master,  in  His  Teaching, 
His  Offering,  His  Resurrection,  the  essence  of  the  mind  and 
purpose  of  God  toward  all  men.  His  was  a  lone  star  of 
singular  brilliance.  Penetration,  insight,  exegetical  discern- 
ment, courageous  earnestness,  finished  culture,  were  welded 
together  in  his  preaching  by  the  fervor  of  his  spirituality, 
giving  it  not  only  prophetic  rank  but  that  of  literature. 

Robert  William  Dale,  of  Birmingham,  England,  believed 
preaching  to  be  the  loftiest  vocation  vouchsafed  to  man  and 
would  have  regarded  a  seat  in  the  British  Cabinet  as  a  descent 
from  Carr's  Lane  pulpit.  Upon  this  ideal  he  lavished  talents 
that  excited  the  liveliest  hopes  of  his  friends  and  the  increase 
of  a  learning  gained  by  unrelaxing  labors,  in  which  he  per- 
sisted when  he  stood  at  the  summit  of  his  calling  and  unto 
the  end  of  his  career.     His  characteristically  English  person- 


86  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ality,  matured  by  his  contact  with  multiform  interests,  dom- 
inated the  best  minds  of  his  day.  The  ministry  he  exercised, 
disengaged  from  the  petty  and  the  temporary,  developed  a 
gravity  which  drew  to  itself  the  souls  within  its  wide  radius. 
His  example  ratifies  much  which  I  have  tried  to  say,  and  is 
the  more  contagious  because  he  looked  upon  Christian  culture 
with  an  inclusive  eye.  For  him  it  was  a  grace  of  the  heart 
as  truly  as  of  the  intellect,  the  coordination  of  all  ideas  and 
sentiments  that  enforce  the  teachings  of  the  Gospel  upon 
human  nature  and  human  institutions.  Fixed  from  his  youth 
in  the  Evangelical  Faith,  he  felt  free  to  combine  with  his 
private  and  ministerial  devotions  the  public  service  which 
creates  or  widens  opportunities  for  preaching.  He  was  at 
his  best  in  the  study  and  the  sanctuary  as  an  interpreter  of 
the  doctrines  of  Divine  love  and  justice.  But  the  platform 
which  knew  John  Bright 's  transforming  presence  as  the 
greatest  lay  preacher  who  has  appeared  in  modern  politics, 
was  also  Dale's  chosen  sphere.  There  he  extolled  righteous- 
ness, denounced  the  false  gods  of  democracy,  rebuked  leaders 
of  the  State,  who,  he  felt,  were  inimical  to  its  larger  welfare, 
and  raised  national  life  to  higher  levels.  The  breadth  of  his 
ambassadorship  has  been  criticized,  but  its  scope  was  entirely 
harmonious  with  its  depth  and  vitality.  He  saw  earthly  af- 
fairs in  the  light  of  the  Eternal  and  pitied  the  ignorance  and 
deprivation  of  the  people  who  suffer  and  toil,  in  whom  he 
perceived  the  possibilities  of  a  renewed  common  weal  and  the 
promise  of  a  better  day. 

Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon  and  John  Henry  Newman  were 
alike  in  nothing  else  except  the  dogmatic  concentration  of 
their  efforts  upon  two  widely  variant  types  of  faith.  The 
one  lived  to  exalt  the  Church,  the  other  the  Puritan  concep- 
tion of  the  Gospel.  Spurgeon 's  provincialism,  literalistie 
interpretations  of  the  Bible  and  intolerant  theological  temper 
have  been  singled  out  for  just  criticism,  but  he  had  no  equal 
for  evangelical  power,  pathos  and  persuasiveness.  It  is  one 
of  the  marvels  of  the  pulpit  that  his  sermons  still  continue 
to  appear  weekly  and  have  a  wide   circulation  in   all  the 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  87 

churches.  His  melodious  voice,  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  average  mind,  expansive  popular  sympathy,  knowledge  of 
the  Scriptures  and  of  the  seventeenth  century  divines,  abso- 
lute certitude  of  statement,  and  racy  speech,  reminiscent  of 
Latimer  and  Bunyan,  constituted  him  one  of  the  pulpit 
princes  of  his  time,  and  it  adds  greatly  to  his  fame  that  the 
common  people  heard  him  gladly. 

Alexander  MacLaren  was  the  eminent  expository  preacher 
of  the  century,  whose  exegetical  sermons,  based  on  the  sound 
learning  of  the  Cambridge  School  of  divines,  have  been  read 
and  appreciated  in  every  English-speaking  land.  Not  a  few 
clergymen  would  allot  to  him  the  elevation  given  to  Beecher, 
and  for  lovers  of  the  Bible  he  will  always  have  meritorious 
qualities.  He  was  most  widely  known  as  a  preacher  and 
commentator,  but  he  was  also  a  clear  thinker,  a  master  of 
metaphor  and  allusion  and  an  observant  and  a  meditative 
although  somewhat  austere  and  isolated  spirit. 

I  have  only  touched  the  fringe  of  this  history,  and  prob- 
ably you  feel,  after  so  fragmentary  a  review,  as  though  you 
have  been  hurried  through  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre  Vt^ith 
opportunity  for  no  more  than  a  casual  glance  at  their  many 
masterpieces.  The  evangelical  eloquence  of  Charles  Simeon, 
the  Ossianic  flights  of  the  brilliant  but  erratic  Edward  Irving, 
the  simple  manliness  of  William  Jay,  the  unequaled  mission- 
ary discourses  of  Richard  "Watson,  the  towering  strength  of 
Thomas  Binney,  the  statesman-like  pleadings  of  Jabez  Bunt- 
ing, the  fervid  piety  of  John  Angell  James,  the  restrained 
intensity  of  James  Parsons  of  York,  the  graceful  dexterity  of 
Bishop  Wilberforce,  the  qualities  in  Archbishop  Magee  which 
made  Henry  Parry  Liddon  award  to  him  the  crown  many  had 
bestowed  upon  Liddon  himself,  as  the  greatest  living  preacher, 
suggest  to  you  other  galleries  hung  with  speaking  likenesses 
of  men  among  whom  you  can  profitably  linger.  They  were 
not  rhetoricians  who  vainly  attempt  to  "draw  nectar  through 
a  sieve,"  nor  disputants  whose  barren  polemics  disfigure  the 
message  of  peace  and  reconciliation.  Some  of  them  were 
cherished  exemplars  of  the  moralist  and  the  man  of  letters 


88  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

as  well  as  of  the  preacher.  Others  were  witnesses  against  one 
age  and  precursors  of  another;  advocates  of  the  poor  in  de- 
fiance of  oppression,  of  liberty  in  an  era  of  arbitrary  power, 
of  the  human  virtues  and  sacred  precepts  of  the  Gospel  among 
worldlings  who  sacrificed  these  to  carnal  motives  and  aims. 
The  interpretations  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  by  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice,  and  those  of  the  Johannine  Gospel  by 
Brooke  Foss  Westcott,  are  full  of  the  instinctive  perception 
of  genuine  spirituality.  Dr.  James  Martineau  is  doubtless 
known  to  you  as  a  religious  philosopher,  but  he  was  also  an 
ascensive  preacher,  never  popular,  always  influential  among 
not  a  few  thinkers  and  leaders  whom  he  conveyed  into  the 
higher  realms  of  sacred  feeling  and  ethical  reasoning.  Hugh 
Price  Hughes  had  the  Celtic  fire  of  Wales,  the  province  of 
poet-preachers,  who  kept  everything  alive  until  his  labori- 
ous work  of  re-animating  world  Methodism  and  the  social 
conscience  of  the  Free  Churches  came  to  its  sudden  yet  glori- 
ous end.  Joseph  Parker  did  not  always  make  accent  do  duty 
for  thought,  nor  dramatic  emphasis  for  originality.  Once 
he  forgot  himself,  he  became,  beyond  question,  one  of  the 
greatest  pulpit  luminaries  in  England,  whose  City  Temple 
was  a  sanctuary  for  modern  prophecy.  He  had  lineaments 
difficult  to  depict,  which  in  their  romantic  exuberance  some- 
times went  beyond  the  recognized  province  of  the  homiletical 
art,  but  his  copious  faculties  for  expression  compelled  an 
Empire  to  listen  to  him. 

Turn  to  Scotland  once  more  and  recall  Thomas  Guthrie, 
one  of  the  first  clergymen  of  the  early  Victorian  period  to 
hear  and  heed  the  cry  of  the  city's  submerged  masses;  John 
Cairns,  who  searched  the  lives  of  men  with  the  candle  of  the 
Lord ;  McLeod  Campbell,  whose  volume  on  the  Atonement 
was  a  valuable  contribution  to  esoteric  theology;  Murray  Mc- 
Cheyne,  a  guileless  and  seraphic  spirit ;  John  Caird,  the  recog- 
nized pulpit  thinker  of  a  people  metaphysical  by  instinct; 
Principal  A.  M.  Fairbaim,  of  astonishing  erudition  and  equal 
ardor ;  George  Matheson,  whose  blindness  helped  to  make  him 
a  seer  and  a  singer  of  the  Church;  Principal  Tulloch,  the 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  89 

master  of  ecclesiastical  assemblies,  and  Principal  Rainy,  who 
fashioned  their  policies.  These  were  valiant  sons  of  God 
from  across  the  border ;  from  the  land  of  Duff,  Moffat,  Living- 
stone, Chalmers,  Morrison,  missionaries  of  the  Cross  to  many- 
lands.  I  have  said  nothing  of  such  American  preachers  as 
Richard  Salter  Storrs,  whose  ornate  sermons  were  nurtured 
by  his  study  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen;  of  A.  J.  F, 
Behrends,  whose  force  of  thought  and  expression  was  conse- 
crated to  the  defense  of  the  Faith ;  of  William  M.  Taylor, 
perhaps  the  foremost  preacher  of  New  York  City  thirty  years 
ago;  nothing  of  the  great  array  of  present  active  preachers, 
whose  ranks  you  should  be  proud  to  join. 

The  large  majority  of  the  clergy  in  the  periods  indicated 
did  not  aspire  to  be  heard  in  the  great  congregation,  nor 
expect  to  raise  their  voices  on  any  hill  of  Mars.  They  were 
employed  in  obscure  spheres  far  from  the  crowded  scenes  of 
human  traffic.  Yet  what  a  preferable  lot  was  theirs,  who, 
disdainful  of  material  wealth  and  honors,  devoted  themselves 
to  the  highest  service.  Be  worthy  of  all  the  glorious  com- 
pany, for  whenever  you  enter  the  pulpit  you  are  encompassed 
about  by  this  great  cloud  of  witnesses.  They,  the  spiritual 
mentors  of  the  ages,  taught  their  fellows  that  righteousness 
exalts  the  nations  and  Divine  Love  redeems  the  race,  turning 
men  from  the  grossest  degradation  to  belief  in  God  and 
obedience  to  His  commands.  Among  them  you  discern  cre- 
ators and  rulers  of  states,  architects  of  justice  and  freedom, 
evangelists  to  heathen  tribes,  regulators  of  society,  builders 
of  seats  of  learning,  ambassadors  to  the  world  at  large.  The 
deepest  problems  of  earthly  speculation  were  not  more  than 
difficult  trifles  in  their  estimation,  unless  they  led  men  to  Him 
in  Whom  is  the  fulfillment  not  only  of  reason  but  of  that 
which  is  forever  beyond  reason — the  Will  of  the  Everlasting 
Father. 

Memory  frequently  tells  a  tale  as  flattering  as  that  of  hope, 
and  few  things  appear  in  its  teeming  retrospects  which  justify 
your  optimism  more  than  does  the  history  of  preaching  as 
the  shaping  force  of  enduring  civilization.     Where  can  you 


90  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

reap  so  plentiful  a  harvest  as  in  this  succession  of  lives  di- 
vinely appointed,  with  hearts  to  feel,  brains  to  conceive  and 
wills  to  execute  the  rescue  of  the  broken  and  the  desolate? 
They  saw  what  kings  and  prophets  desired  to  see  but  had  not 
seen.  They  followed  the  banner  of  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Saviour  of  the  World;  and  although  everywhere  and  always 
you  will  be  amongst  the  living,  the  fellowship  of  other  pres- 
ences, some  dim,  some  shining,  will  govern  your  movements 
and  shape  your  message.  Behind  the  people  you  will  per- 
ceive the  publicist ;  behind  the  publicist,  the  political  philoso- 
pher; behind  the  political  philosopher,  the  metaphysician; 
and  behind  them  all  inspired  seers  of  Christianity,  the  sources 
of  your  soul's  courage  and  devotion,  of  new  faith,  of  un- 
fathomed  strength,  of  exhaustless  consolation.  You  can 
classify  them  empirically  as  intellectual  preachers,  or  dog- 
matic, didactic,  hortatory,  theological,  evangelical;  what  you 
will.  But  the  arrangement  is  unscientific  and  misleading. 
For  many  of  them,  and  among  these,  the  best,  surmounted 
such  artificial  limitations,  and  blended  the  characteristics  of 
the  types  I  have  named  in  their  individual  ministry.  Their 
true  ground  of  unity,  which  is  also  their  rationale,  is  found 
in  the  Absoluteness  of  Jesus.  Pontiffs,  Fathers,  Schoolmen, 
Medirevalists,  Reformers  and  Modernists  are  an  inseparable 
whole  in  the  Preeminent  One.  He  guarantees  their  legiti- 
macy and  also  your  communion  with  Himself  and  them. 
From  Him  the  charter  of  all  genuinely  Christian  preaching 
is  derived ;  and  since  no  spirit  shines  by  its  own  radiance,  and 
none  transmits  more  light  than  it  can  receive,  the  illumination 
these  prophets  and  preachers  diffused  throughout  the  ages 
must  be  ascribed  to  their  reflection  of  the  glory  of  the  Son 
of  God.  Where  that  illumination  has  been  distorted  by  in- 
tellectual vagaries,  or  refracted  through  the  prism  of  an  over- 
weening culture,  or  darkened  by  prejudice  and  ignorance,  the 
obscurations  can  usually  be  traced  to  unfaith  rather  than  to 
faith,  to  a  bewildering  distrust  in  the  sufficiency  of  Christ 
as  the  Light  of  the  World.     Forever  one  in  Him  and  in  the 


PROPHETS  AND  PREACHERS  91 

Divine  embassy  from  which  ecclesiastical  divisions  cannot 
separate  you,  realize  your  oneness  by  the  renunciation  of  your 
lower  selves  and  by  your  consistent  devotion  to  the  Lord  of 
allUfe. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING 


I  chaise  thee  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  shall 
judge  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  by  his  appearing  and  his  king- 
dom: preach  the  word;  be  urgent  in  season,  out  of  season;  reprove, 
rebuke,  exhort,  with  all  longsuffering  and  teaching.  For  the  time 
will  come  when  they  will  not  endure  the  sound  doctrine;  but,  having 
itching  ears,  will  heap  to  themselves  teachers  after  their  own  lusts; 
and  will  turn  away  their  ears  from  the  truth,  and  turn  aside  unto 
fables.  But  be  thou  sober  in  all  things,  suffer  hardship,  do  the 
work  of  an  evangelist,  fulfill  thy  ministry. 

II  Timothy  iv:  1-5. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MODERN  ATTITUDE   TOWARD  PREACHING 

Waning  influence  of  the  pulpit — Alleged  causes — Main  causes  found 
in  the  intellectual  and  social  movements  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury— Darwin's  evolutionary  hypothesis — Theological  opposition 
— Theories  of  social  reform — Ecclesiastical  apathy — Resentment 
of  the  workers — Efforts  of  Maurice  and  Kingsley — The  Church 
and  Social  questions — Signs  of  an  awakening — The  preacher 
and  economic  theories. 

How  fares  it  with  the  pulpit  to-day?  According  to  its 
censors  preaching  for  the  last  two  decades  has  had  a  steadily- 
waning  career.  "We  are  assured  that  the  days  are  gone  when 
great  preachers,  like  great  writers,  were  reverenced  at  every 
fireside.  Scarcely  a  week  elapses  in  which  we  are  not  told 
the  center  of  moral  authority  is  no  longer  in  the  pulpit,  that 
the  vital  spark  is  not  kindled  there.  The  reasons  assigned 
for  this  alleged  decadence,  however,  are  not  consistent.  One 
group  of  critics  attributes  it  to  want  of  grasp  upon  the  funda- 
mentals of  the  Christian  message.  Given,  they  urge,  a  suc- 
cession of  clergymen  intent  upon  these  fundamentals  to  the 
exclusion  of  inferior  matters  and  the  acceptance  of  their 
presentation  is  assured.  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  the  manner  in  which  those  who  think  themselves 
wiser  than  the  rest  of  the  religious  world  fall  into  snares  that 
simple  good  sense  avoids.  Take  some  of  these  critics  at  their 
proper  valuation  and  you  discover  that  their  knowledge  of 
theology  is  limited  to  a  few  well-worn  phrases  or  familiar 
formulas,  which  they  substitute  for  the  grand  dimensions  and 
interpretations  of  the  Christian  Revelation.  Their  attain- 
ments, in  given  instances,  suffice  to  raise  them  from  the  in- 
significance of  stupidity  to  the  dignity  of  boredom.     On  the 

95 


96  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

other  hand  there  are,  as  we  know,  many  well-intentioned  men 
and  women  holding  similar  views,  who  have  really  read  and 
thought  much,  but  whose  reading  and  thinking  have  been 
almost  entirely  confined  to  a  single  type  of  Christian  teaching 
and  to  one  class  of  pulpit  themes.  Consequently,  though 
having  an  acquaintance  with  these  subjects,  they  are  by  no 
means  so  well  qualified  to  judge  of  a  great  system  like  the 
Gospel  as  those  who  have  taken  a  larger  view  of  its  history, 
literature,  methods,  aims  and  the  interplay  of  its  vital  power. 

Another  group  of  idealists,  deeply  stirred  by  the  unfair 
treatment  so  often  meted  out  to  the  pulpit,  declares  that  the 
people  at  large  have  no  appetite  for  the  spiritual  verities 
preaching  presupposes  and  with  which  it  deals.  The  im- 
pression retained  by  this  group  is  that  so  far  from  there  being 
a  hunger  for  the  pure  food  of  the  Gospel,  the  majority  of 
people  are  perfectly  contented  with  the  fleshpots  of  the  Egypt 
of  material  opulence  to  which  they  are  addicted.  The  sacred 
institutions  and  truths  with  which  the  preacher  is  associated 
and  which  have  been  identified  with  every  phase  of  human 
betterment  for  the  last  two  thousand  years,  are  indeed  es- 
teemed and  loved  by  a  faithful  minority,  but  that  minority 
contends  that  an  untoward  generation  looks  upon  those  in- 
stitutions and  truths  with  indifference.  As  this  despairing 
remnant  sees  the  situation  there  is  nothing  left  for  you  to  do 
but  to  bear  your  witness  in  an  irresponsive  age  and  thus 
preserve  the  permanent  witness  of  the  Church  to  the  Faith. 

The  cause  of  this  untoward  condition  is  found  by  these 
pessimistic  friends  in  the  material  prosperity  of  the  times. 
True,  there  has  been  a  remarkable  general  increase  in  this 
world's  goods,  and  nearly  everybody  is  better  informed  to-day 
concerning  matters  conducive  to  temporal  welfare.  Bat  it 
has  not  been  demonstrated  that  temporal  welfare  is  in- 
trinsically unfavorable  to  the  Gospel,  which  is  preached  to 
the  poor  not  to  keep  them  poor  but  to  elevate  their  lot  to  ac- 
cepted standards  of  decency  and  comfort.  What  has  played 
a  greater  part  in  that  elevation  than  Christianity?  Com- 
munities and  nations  which  have  assimilated  even  to  a  slight 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      97 

extent  the  teaching  and  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  have 
become  endowed  with  the  knowledge,  stability,  thrift  and 
diligence  essential  to  the  production  and  distribution  of 
wealth.  It  would  seem  illogical,  therefore,  to  assert  that 
these  teachings  are  impotent  to  control  the  substantial  bene- 
fits they  so  largely  help  to  create.  Thinkers  who  ignore  this 
consideration  and  assail  without  qualification  the  rapid  growth 
of  wealth  are  liable  to  miss  the  mark.  Mammonism  is  rightly 
condemned  for  its  gross  abuse  of  riches,  but  the  condemnation 
does  not  warrant  the  inference  that  wealth  is  unlawful  or  that 
Christianity  is  of  moment  only  in  adversity,  an  ascetic  creed 
which  adjusts  itself  most  readily  to  the  poverty  stricken 
and  the  socially  inefficient.  The  antagonisms  which  retard 
religious  progress  and  prevent  the  liberty  of  prophecy  exist 
not  between  the  Evangel  of  Jesus  and  the  mere  ownership  of 
extensive  possessions,  but  between  that  Evangel  and  those 
spurious  ideals  of  life  which  vitiate  wealth,  poverty,  morals, 
politics  and  everything  else  they  infect.  Unsparingly  op- 
pose every  false  motive  and  pursuit  which  cannot  be  dedicated 
to  the  service  of  God,  but  do  not  fall  into  the  error  of  sup- 
posing that  you  aid  that  service  by  fulminating  against  the 
wealth  which  is  an  inevitable  outcome  of  a  strong  and  intelli- 
gent civilization. 

The  accusation  is  reiterated  that  ours  is  an  era  of  hardness 
of  heart  and  unbelief  which  has  turned  traitor  in  the  conflict 
between  good  and  evil,  but  the  evidence  adduced  to  sustain 
so  serious  a  charge  is  by  no  means  entirely  admissible  when 
viewed  either  from  the  standpoint  of  philosophy  or  experi- 
ence. Faith  is  a  universal  and  continuous  factor,  and  right- 
eousness is  the  ultimate  goal  of  the  race.  You  may  meet  those 
who  are  without  hope,  compassion,  or  love,  but  you  will  find 
it  exceedingly  difficult  to  discover  a  human  being  without 
faith.  Men  have  to  believe  in  order  not  to  believe,  and  when 
they  avow  their  skepticism  they  only  recite  their  creed.  No 
crisis  can  destroy  faith  until  it  first  destroys  humanity;  no 
imaginable  assault  can  obliterate  the  trust  which  is  an  in- 
divisible quantity  in  every  rational  being.     The  crucial  point 


98  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

is  not  that  men  shall  believe,  which  they  do  by  nature,  but 
what  they  shall  believe  and  with  what  proportion  and  em- 
phasis. They  need  the  Eternal  Objectives  upon  which  faith 
can  securely  rest,  which  fulfill  its  highest  aspirations  and 
requite  its  confidence  with  regenerative  power.  The  preacher 
has  to  satisfy  this  need  with  an  authorized  message  devoid  of 
theological  traditions  which  antagonize  benevolent  instincts 
or  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  reason.  Have  sympathy  and 
respect  for  these  modest  stipulations  of  a  religious  mind, 
which  ecclesiastics  of  a  sort  have  not  always  understood,  a 
mind  extensively  perceptible  and  in  innumerable  instances 
clarified  by  reverent  reflection. 

Aloofness  from  the  pulpit  has  been  traced  by  not  a  few 
observers  to  the  rationalistic  proclivities  of  the  age,  and  by 
others  to  its  sacerdotal  susceptibilities.  As  against  these  at- 
tributions we  are  reminded  that  rationalism  spurs  intellectual 
interest  in  religion  and  that  sacerdotalism  inspires  pious  en- 
ergy and  zeal.  But  though  they  achieve  these  results  among 
a  small  minority,  it  has  been  pertinently  remarked  that  for 
the  majority  of  outsiders  whom  we  desire  to  reach,  rationalism 
minifies  the  unseen  realities  which  religion  presses  and  sacer- 
dotalism is  too  mechanical  to  appeal  to  a  host  of  meditative 
spirits.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  overestimate  the  im- 
portance of  these  conclusions,  since  the  pulpit  has  less  to 
fear  from  the  opposition  of  what  is  loosely  called  rationalism 
than  from  the  hypocrisy  and  weakness  of  professed  Chris- 
tians, and  it  is  also  notable  that  audiences  consisting  of  ex- 
treme sacramentarians  usually  exhibit  marked  devotion  and 
listen  eagerly  to  the  spoken  "Word.  Undoubtedly  there  is  a 
measure  of  truth  in  the  various  reasons  assigned  for  the 
neglect  of  preaching,  and  you  do  not  have  to  concede  their 
complete  validity  to  benefit  by  them.  Yet  the  ministerial 
mind,  tranquilly  dependent  upon  the  certitudes  it  knows,  can 
afford  to  remain  patient  when  confronted  with  opposing  ele- 
ments, and  be  averse  to  rash  conjecture  as  to  insolent  re- 
joinder. Exaggerations,  errors,  wrong  advices,  are  obvious 
enough  in  accounting  for  the  diminished  sway  of  the  pulpit. 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      99 

Nevertheless,  criticism  has  enforced  upon  preaching  a  more 
practical  charity,  a  larger  knowledge  of  truth  as  truth  and 
the  confession  that  it  dwells  in  multitudinous  forms.  Indi- 
viduals who  prefer  hypnotic  enthusiasm  to  psychological 
analysis  and  who  manipulate  the  emotions  while  they  dis- 
parage the  intellect  are  not  likely  to  agree  with  this  conclu- 
sion, but  you  will  find  in  your  audiences  those  who  do  agree 
with  it,  who  look  upon  Christianity  as  the  science  as  well  as 
the  practice  of  godliness,  and  who  welcome  the  frank  and 
fearless  inquiries  which  pave  the  way  for  its  more  thorough 
and  studious  advocacy. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  suggest  that  those  who  fix  a  near 
sighted  gaze  upon  the  shallower  streams  of  present  tendencies 
in  religion  are  not  able  to  discern  the  deeper  drifts.  Below 
these  surface  agitations  runs  the  current  of  a  profoundly 
spiritual  faith  to  which  the  prophetic  function  of  the  Church 
should  be  addressed  in  just  and  fruitful  ways.  Nor  is  there 
very  much  which  is  new  in  the  prejudices  and  misapprehen- 
sions unfavorable  to  your  calling.  In  reviewing  such  matters, 
many  of  which  are  of  the  commonest  observation,  you  do  not 
navigate  uncharted  waters  dangerously  rife  with  reef  and 
shoal,  in  which  there  are  no  openings,  no  broad  expanses,  for 
the  fullest  exercise  of  the  preaching  office.  On  the  contrary, 
these  abound  and  the  single  motived  servant  of  God  need 
never  be  at  a  loss  to  find  them.  The  recession  from  the  pulpit 
is  often  exaggerated  by  those  who  take  counsel  of  their  fears. 
An  incalculable  number  of  earnest  and  devout  men  and  women 
still  look  to  preaching  for  light  and  guidance,  and  you  have 
to  make  certain  that  they  do  not  look  in  vain.  Their  re- 
ciprocal influence  upon  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel  is  immeas- 
urable in  extent  and  beneficial  beyond  words.  Keep  it  ever 
before  you  through  this  survey  and  recall  the  fact  that  those 
who  gratefully  appreciate  preaching,  as  the  chosen  agency 
for  the  propaganda  of  the  Church,  are  the  moral  leaven  of 
every  community.  Their  fidelity  to  the  New  Testament  Faith 
is  a  source  of  the  liveliest  hope  and  encouragement.  In  the 
spirit  they  stimulate  we  should  study  the  causes  which  have 


100  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

separated  the  pulpit  from  the  people,  and  which,  whether  near 
or  remote,  will  have  to  be  examined  rather  than  denounced 
in  order  that  a  correct  diagnosis  may  hasten  their  removal. 

Having  glanced  at  the  more  usual  explanations  of  the 
diminished  prominence  of  the  pulpit,  I  hasten  to  add  that 
the  recent  war  has  been  drawn  upon  all  too  freely  in  their 
behalf.  The  evolution  of  human  life  has  seldom  been  less 
spasmodic  than  during  the  period  preceding  the  war.  The 
material  and  moral  changes  which  characterized  that  period 
were  an  ordered  process;  their  results,  both  sweet  and  bitter, 
have  interpenetrated  life,  and  their  interpretations  by  com- 
petent authorities  have  molded  our  thinking.  To  go  no  far- 
ther back  than  the  near  antiquity  of  1859,  when  Darwin  pub- 
lished his  Origin  of  Species,  and  forward  to  the  present  time, 
the  annals  of  Europe  and  America  have  been  distinguished 
by  a  series  of  remarkable  names  and  achievements  in  every 
department  of  knowledge  and  imagination, — art,  literature, 
science,  philosophy,  sociology,  theology,  religious  symbolism 
and  preaching.  The  majority  of  these  celebrities  attained  the 
height  of  their  reputation  when  the  last  century  was  at  its 
meridian.  Their  researches  in  the  physical  universe,  their 
discussions  of  political  and  ethical  questions,  their  solutions 
of  historical  problems,  their  literary  and  artistic  contributions, 
alike  exhibit  a  comprehensive  contact  with  life  and  a  mastery 
of  its  phenomena,  which  at  their  lowest  valuation  equal  and 
in  scientific  scholarship  exceed  those  of  any  previous  time. 
The  bequests  they  made  have  been  deeply  formative  of  re- 
ligious beliefs,  and  no  clergjonan  can  appreciate  the  modern 
attitude  toward  his  calling,  who  is  not  acquainted  with  the 
nineteenth  century  scientists,  artists,  philosophers  and  poets. 

Preaching,  as  already  noted,  enjoyed  during  that  period  its 
share  of  popularity  and  entered  upon  a  spacious  interval 
which  was  not,  however,  without  signs  of  approaching  decline. 
The  dogmatism  of  Oxford  High  Anglicans  and  the  liberalism 
of  Broad  Churchmen  and  of  not  a  few  Free  Churchmen  ac- 
centuated the  difference  between  two  chief  types  of  pulpit 
advocacy.     The  one  type  maintained  that  the  Faith  could  not 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       101 

prevail  apart  from  priestly  and  creedal  absolutism.  The 
other  repudiated  this  restriction  in  behalf  of  a  Christianity 
which  entered  every  field  that  bore  the  footmarks  of  humanity, 
and  eliminated  the  artificial  definitions  of  the  sacred  and  the 
secular,  which  had  no  meaning  in  the  theocracy  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  Ministers  who  felt  the  pulse  of  opposition  made 
a  clean  breast  of  many  suppressed  opinions  and  thus  cleared 
the  air  for  sincere  and  positive  preaching.  Beset  by  the  rapid 
increase  of  learning  and  the  nascent  beginnings  of  social  and 
political  revolution,  churchmen  of  every  shade  of  belief  saw 
their  cherished  convictions  subjected  to  severe  ordeals.  Those 
who  remained  upon  the  dead  levels  where  theory  evaporates 
into  opportunism  found  there  but  few  facilities  for  an  influ- 
ential ministry;  those  who  dealt  candidly  with  disputed 
issues  broached  them  in  agitating  yet  useful  ways.  The  cham- 
pions of  orthodoxy  and  of  clericalism  scented  danger  ahead. 
The  protagonists  of  the  new  learning  pleaded  for  comprehen- 
sive ideals  in  ethics  and  religion  and  for  a  more  dispassionate 
yet  earnest  view  of  spiritual  truth.  Doctrinal  reformers  peti- 
tioned for  a  revision  of  systematic  theology,  which  would 
harmonize  it  with  the  expansion  of  knowledge.  Optimists  and 
poets  gilded  the  pill  by  asserting  that  Utopia's  Day  had 
dawned.  Disappointed  factionists  reverted  to  threatenings  of 
the  approach  of  Divine  wrath  and  judgment.  Controversies 
were  kindled,  some  of  which  still  blaze;  others  are  faintly 
visible  by  the  light  of  their  dying  embers. 

The  close  of  an  era  is  apt  to  imitate  the  succession  of  the 
seasons;  to  be  autumnal  in  its  splendor  before  it  deepens 
down  into  the  gloom  of  winter.  Some  such  experience  as  this 
now  befell  the  pulpit,  when  numerous  factors,  difficult  to 
marshal  in  their  sequence,  were  overshadowed  by  three  dom- 
inating questions :  the  application  of  the  critical  and  historical 
method  to  Holy  "Writ,  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  of  biological 
development,  and  the  social  movement  initiated  by  the  educa- 
tion of  the  plain  people.  The  first  of  these  issues  has  been 
sufficiently  discussed  in  the  foregoing  lectures;  the  second 
still  vexes  the  peace  of  the  Church;  the  third  is  the  theater 


102  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  her  future  defeat  or  triumph.  All  three  were  common 
to  the  pulpits  of  English-speaking  nations  then  as  they  are 
now,  and  as  yet  there  has  been  no  final  settlement  of  the 
difficulties  involved.  It  is  plainly  evident  at  this  distance 
that  the  most  important  results  of  the  scientific  inquiry  of  the 
last  century  were  obtained,  not  in  history,  nor  in  science, 
but  in  theology.  The  benefits  derived  from  the  upheaval  were, 
however,  scarcely  more  conspicuous  than  the  mistakes  that 
were  made  and  the  limitations  that  were  revealed  by  both 
theologians  and  scientists.  Theologians  promptly  pointed  out 
the  strange  unwelcome  answers  which  scientists  gave  to  im- 
perative questionings  about  God,  man  and  the  moral  order. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  processes  of  disillusionment  fostered 
by  scientific  enquiry  which  bared  but  could  not  undermine 
the  massive  foundations  of  the  Christian  Faith,  were  highly 
objectionable  to  devout  men  slow  to  learn  that  though  forms 
of  religious  belief  change,  its  essence  persists.  Things  they 
then  brusquely  challenged  are  now  known  to  be  conducive 
to  the  praise  of  God  and  the  moral  health  of  man.  Under 
the  clerical  control  of  the  colleges  and  universities,  which 
continued,  though  diminished,  until  a  few  decades  ago,  studies 
in  the  classics  and  theology  were  stimulated  and  the  physical 
sciences  neglected.  Yet  if  the  education  given  there  did  not 
produce  the  specialists  and  experts  who  have  since  been  over- 
praised, nor  guard  its  recipients  against  the  perils  of  the 
deductive  method,  it  could  claim  many  scholars  of  the  finest 
culture,  theologians  of  sterling  worth,  and  erudite  and  elo- 
quent preachers.  It  was  hard  to  persuade  clerical  dons,  how- 
ever, that  the  lordship  of  learning  was  not  their  privilege  as 
the  custodians  of  an  infallible  revelation.  After  a  prelim- 
inary testing  of  the  qualities  of  induction  in  historical  criti- 
cism, the  method  was  further  exploited  in  the  evolutionary 
theory.  Ecclesiastics  of  every  school  were  outraged  by  this 
unprecedented  invasion  of  a  province  which  they  regarded  as 
peculiarly  their  own,  and  the  firm  opposition  of  the  older 
scientists,  including  Agassiz,  Buckland  and  Owen,  was  aroused. 
Nurtured  in  one  of  the  most  magnanimous  minds  of  the  age, 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       103 

the  idea  of  natural  selection  which  had  been  foreshadowed 
from  Lucretius  to  Wallace  was  first  formally  outlined  by 
Darwin.  It  soon  went  beyond  biology  to  the  capture  of 
practically  all  the  sciences;  indeed,  with  Huxley's  pungent 
advocacy  it  became  militantly  aggressive,  and  flatly  contra- 
dicted an  apologetic  which  had  faithfully  served  preaching 
in  the  past. 

You  are  not  foresworn  to  defend  any  particular  cosmogony, 
nor  to  deny  that  the  physical  structure  of  man  was  derived 
from  animal  progenitors.  Numerous  lines  of  evidence  with- 
out actually  meeting  converge  toward  the  demonstration  of 
this  theory.  Until  they  do  meet  and  the  irrefutable  proof 
is  forthcoming,  or  even  after  it  has  been  made,  the  theory 
will  not  interfere  with  revelatory  teaching  that  man  is  a 
spiritual  being,  divinely  created,  and  dependent  upon  his 
Creator  for  redemption  unto  life  eternal.  Nevertheless,  the 
cry  of  exasperated  dismay  which  arose,  when  the  germinal 
conception  that  had  flashed  upon  Darwin  with  the  sud- 
denness of  an  intuition  was  elaborated  by  him,  voiced  an  in- 
tellectual intolerance  in  the  orthodox  clergy,  which  no  mediae- 
val ecclesiastic  could  have  surpassed.  The  light  was  at  once 
extinguished  in  widely  separated  religious  systems ;  and  while 
Newton 's  Principia  had  incurred  the  keen  resentment  of  thou- 
sands, Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  and  The  Descent  of  Man 
incurred  that  of  tens  of  thousands.  They  were  openly 
anathematized  as  the  antithesis  of  Christianity  according  to 
Christ,  destructive  of  the  integrity  of  the  Bible  and  deroga- 
tory to  the  character  of  God  and  of  man. 

Darwin's  assumptions  were  vast  enough  to  placate  the  most 
convinced  adherents  of  the  miraculous,  who  took  the  pains  to 
examine  them.  He  postulated  a  universe  of  organic  matter 
under  the  reign  of  law,  the  uniformity  of  Nature,  the  con- 
servation of  her  energies,  and  the  unbroken  continuity  of  her 
history.  From  these  premises  he  drew  the  conclusions  he 
impressively  expounded,  which  are  now  a  part  of  the  mental 
equipment  of  theology  as  well  as  of  the  physical  sciences. 
Given  a  habitable  world  in  ordered  correspondence  with  the 


104  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

universe,  a  few  elementary  forms  of  life,  a  suitable  environ- 
ment, and  Darwin  proposed  to  show  how  that  world  had  been 
tenanted  by  natural  selection,  from  bacilli  up  to  man.  It 
should  be  observed  that  the  processes  were  not  superimposed 
upon  what  was  passive  but  were  assimilated  by  what  was 
vitally  active.  As  a  theory  of  causation,  therefore,  evolution 
was  meaningless ;  as  a  theory  of  methods,  it  was  harmless ;  as 
a  working  hypothesis,  it  has  been  excelled,  if  at  all,  only  by 
that  of  gravitation. 

He  is  the  sagacious  minister  of  the  Gospel  who  leaves  science 
to  the  scientists,  while  he  prepares  himself  as  best  he  can 
for  the  propagation  of  sacred  truths  which  science  can  never 
successfully  controvert.  And  the  scientific  investigator  who 
so  far  forgets  the  boundaries  of  his  calling,  as  to  use  natural 
data  for  dogmatic  afifirmations  about  morals  and  religion,  is 
as  perverse  and  illogical  as  the  pulpiteer  who  maligns  scientific 
learning  because  it  does  not  agree  with  his  theological  predilec- 
tions. In  fine,  thinking  men  and  women  everywhere  have 
learned  the  unforgetable  lessons  that  what  is  truly  religious 
is  finally  reasonable  and  that  scientific  gains  must  be  subor- 
dinated to  moral  aims,  lest  we  all  perish.  Yet  the  saddening 
reflection  persists  that,  if  the  ability  to  view  questions  from 
both  sides  with  absolute  impartiality  and  without  the  glow  of 
personal  feeling  had  not  been  banished  from  this  infuriated 
debate,  theology  and  preaching  might  have  been  spared  years 
of  wasteful  and  ignoble  strife.  Of  all  the  theories  science 
has  put  forth  that  of  evolution  was  the  most  capable  of  being 
reconciled  with  Revelation.  You  believe,  I  venture  to  assume, 
that  the  Christian  Faith  is  bound  to  take  unto  itself  the  veri- 
fied wonders  of  creation,  which  are  resonant  with  the  goodness 
and  wisdom  of  Deity;  that  the  cosmos  must  be  intelligible  to 
mankind ;  and  that  whatever  makes  life  more  rational  and 
therefore  more  truly  divine  should  be  a  part  of  the  praise 
which  the  Church  offers  to  her  Lord.  Why  then  was  not  the 
idea  of  progressive  development  "baptized  into  Christ"? 
The  assertion  that  the  several  endowments  of  sentient  ex- 
istence, originally  breathed  into  one  or  more  primordial  sub- 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       105 

stances,  were  ceaselessly  urged  onward  toward  higher  existence 
had  nothing  in  it  essentially  opposed  to  Christian  truth.  Re- 
newal, growth,  fertility,  contingent  perfectibility;  what  are 
these  but  spiritual  terms  imported  into  the  natural  world? — 
terms  with  which  the  New  Testament  abounds  at  every  turn. 
Here,  as  it  impresses  me,  was  a  unique  opening  for  the  at- 
tachment of  the  hypothesis  of  progressive  development  to  the 
highest  interests  of  the  race.  Its  conscious  possession  and  use 
in  the  Church  were  indefinitely  postponed  by  the  explicable 
but  costly  reaction  of  theologians  and  preachers  who  refused 
to  harmonize  the  facts  of  science  with  the  realities  of  faith. 
Those  facts  and  realities  were  neither  consistent  nor  incon- 
sistent, but  different,  and  such  difference  is  the  prerequisite 
of  genuine  harmony. 

The  distinction  between  the  description  and  formulation 
which  science  gives,  and  the  causal  and  purposive  inter- 
pretation which  theology  and  philosophy  seek,  was  forgotten 
by  the  sincere  advocates  of  a  fictitious  ecclesiastical  or  Biblical 
infallibility,  who  claimed  a  supremacy  to  which  they  were  not 
entitled  over  the  intellectual  life  of  their  age.  Yet  recon- 
ciliation by  means  of  that  distinction  was  possible  to  the  few 
who  had  disciplined  themselves  by  observing  and  thinking 
upon  the  ways  of  God  in  visible  things;  who  accepted  the 
assured  results  which  science  achieved,  while  they  rejected 
its  rash  speculations  and  remembered  that  the  sequence  of 
life  is  more  and  fuller  life.  Among  these  were  the  poets, 
who  relieved  the  tension  by  the  prescience  with  which  they 
sang  in  divers  tones  of  the  oneness  of  faith  and  knowledge, 
and  by  their  conception  of  the  universe  as  a  compacted  whole, 
obedient  to  the  law  of  its  Maker.  They  became  a  source  of , 
enlightenment  and  strength  for  numberless  men  and  women 
who  shrank  alike  from  sermons  in  which  the  foam  of  denun- 
ciation swallowed  up  the  truth  at  issue,  and  from  a  hard  and 
fast  materialism  which  derided  the  poetic  visualization  of  a 
presiding  Mind.  Had  the  idea  of  the  evolution  of  endless 
processions  of  beauty  and  utility  from  primitive  beginnings 
beneath  creative  guidance  been  congenial  to  the  dogmatic 


106  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

preaching  of  fifty  years  ago,  we  should  have  had  less  reason 
to  complain  of  the  recession  from  preaching  to-day. 

The  theory  which  the  orthodox  clergy  of  the  English- 
speaking  world  spurned  afterwards  demolished  the  barriers 
that  restrained  scientific  and  religious  enquiries.  It  gn/e 
coherence  to  otherwise  inchoate  accumulations  of  knowledge 
and  aided  every  kind  of  research  by  mapping  out  the  paths 
on  which  it  could  proceed  to  ascertainable  ends.  It  refined 
not  only  the  intellectual  but  the  moral  features  of  philosophy 
and  generated  the  patience  which  arises  from  the  hope  of  a 
constantly  brightening  future.  But  there  is  a  reverse  and 
sinister  side  to  evolution,  which  shows  that  it  was  employed 
to  inflict  deep  wounds  not  only  upon  religion  but  upon  the 
entire  life  of  man.  While  the  interpreters  of  Christianity 
remained  contemptuous  or  hostile,  what  they  should  have 
consecrated  was  eagerly  misappropriated  by  thinkers  who 
were  at  their  wits'  end  to  conceal  the  bankruptcy  of  their 
materialized  metaphj'^sic.  An  expiring  and  friendless  philoso- 
phy was  resuscitated  in  the  writings  of  Haeckel,  Biichner, 
and  Clodd,  who  outdid  the  specious  generalizations  of  Spencer 
by  their  morally  degrading  encomiums  of  naturalism.  Once 
more  theology  had  played  into  the  hands  of  its  foes,  and  for 
a  time  the  attempt  of  agnostic  nescience  to  reduce  revealed 
religion  to  a  beggarly  state  seemed  to  prevail.  It  was  scarcely 
possible  that  the  evil  conclusions,  which  have  since  disrupted 
the  social  organizations  of  the  world,  could  permanently  affect 
thought  relative  to  man's  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  nature. 
Biologists,  philosophers  and  theologians  have  long  been  at 
odds  concerning  the  various  interpretations  of  the  evolution- 
ary theory,  but  for  the  majority  Huxley  put  the  matter  truly 
in  his  Romanes  lecture.  He  held  that  evolution  was  an 
approximately  correct  reading  of  the  cosmic  chronicles,  but 
declared  that  ethical  progress  depends,  not  on  imitating  the 
cosmic  process,  but  on  overcoming  it.  The  survival  of  the 
fittest  was  to  be  set  aside  by  that  "horticultural  morality" 
which  protects  the  weak  against  the  strong,  and  for  which  the 
New  Testament  is  mainly  responsible.     To  Huxley  then  and 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      107 

not  to  the  purblind  professors  of  Kultur  must  be  ascribed  the 
correct  exposition  of  Darwinism.  He  rebuked  in  advance 
the  decadent  teachers  who  hid  behind  an  estimable  name  and 
violated  the  strict  relativity  of  evolution  as  Darwin  under- 
stood it.  Yet  they  could  not  have  obtained  so  wide  an  access 
to  the  modern  mind  had  the  Church  been  forearmed  against 
the  real  antagonists  of  faith  and  morals,  who  stole  her  property 
while  she  was  obsessed  with  such  futilities  as  the  Ussherian 
chronology,  or  preempted  by  vain  attempts  to  transmute  the 
poetical  compositions  of  Genesis  into  actual  events.  You 
may  be  certain  that  when  the  Church  fails  other  failures  are 
imminent  and  also  that  the  chief  reasons  for  her  failure  are 
within  herself.  Beyond  question  the  primary  cause  of  the 
present  dearth  of  pulpit  influence  in  many  centers,  learned 
or  otherwise,  can  be  traced  to  its  breach  with  nineteenth- 
century  science.  Religion  and  organized  knowledge  were  at 
swords'  points;  lamentable  mischief  was  wrought,  and  when 
a  truce  was  called  the  concessions  from  either  side  were  too 
tardy  and  graceless  to  be  availing.  Nor  has  there  been  as  yet 
any  coordination  of  the  official  doctrinal  standards  of  the 
Church  with  the  assured  results  of  organized  knowledge. 

IL 

The  theologians  of  English-speaking  Christianity  had*  not 
recovered  from  the  shock  of  their  first  onset  with  science 
before  a  more  serious  and  extensive  revolution  began  to 
germinate  in  the  social  and  industrial  realms.  In  the  United 
States  the  violent  disputes  concerning  human  slavery  tore 
asunder  Protestant  denominationalism,  and  presaged  the  Civil 
War.  In  Great  Britain  and  her  dominions  the  demands  of 
an  unfranchised  democracy  divided  the  Church  into  radical 
and  reactionary  camps.  There  had  been  no  welding  of  her 
stubborn  separatisms  and  doctrinal  feuds  at  the  crucial  mo- 
ment when  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  the  toiling  masses  of  the 
nations  were  made  manifest  by  revolts  in  Continental  Europe 
and  the  Chartist  movement  in  England.     "Well-to-do  citizens, 


108  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

staid  Anglicans  or  Evangelicals  in  their  beliefs,  prudent  in 
local  affairs,  short-sighted  beyond  them,  without  initiative 
and  averse  to  experiment,  were  untouched  by  the  bickerings 
of  doctors  and  scholars  and  seemingly  unaware  of  the  social 
peril  incurred  by  the  physical  degradation  of  the  proletariat. 
Dives  and  Lazarus  were  in  their  usual  juxtaposition;  the 
affluent  were  generous  when  they  should  have  been  just,  and 
ignored  the  underlying  causes  of  the  want  and  misery  they 
occasionally  relieved.  The  poor  of  the  cities  and  the  prov- 
inces lived  and  died  wretchedly  and  insensate.  While  the 
great  crusade  for  the  social  and  economic  liberation  of  our 
fellow  men — the  immensity  of  which  grows  upon  us  daily — 
was  slowly  gathering  momentum  in  Church  and  State,  a  be- 
lated resistance  to  progress  was  made  by  the  Tractarians  of 
Oxford.  That  ''beautiful  city,  so  venerable,  so  lovely,  so 
unravaged  by  the  fierce  intellectual  life  of  our  century,  so 
serene,"  once  more  became  the  "home  of  lost  causes  and  for- 
saken beliefs,"^  The  men  of  Oriel  attempted  to  pour  the 
new  wine  into  old  bottles,  and  although  they  failed,  their 
movement  rejuvenated  Anglicanism  and  imparted  catholic 
tendencies  to  its  hitherto  somewhat  provincial  communion. 
The  Tractarians  were  not,  as  has  been  asserted,  solely  negative 
and  obscurantist  in  their  attitude  toward  modernity.  That 
they  looked  with  an  almost  fanatical  hatred  upon  the  policies 
of  an  exceedingly  active  liberalism  by  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded is  unquestionable.  But  the  revival  they  represented 
had  its  chief  source  in  their  consciences :  they  were  filled  with 
righteous  alarm  because  of  the  lukewarmness  and  laxity  of  the 
Establishment.  To  counteract  these  they  fell  back  upon  the 
austerer  faith  of  the  New  Testament,  whose  original  doctrines 
were  registered  for  them  in  Anglican  formularies  and  at- 
tested by  Anglican  divines.  This  ancient  religion,  delivered 
for  all  time  by  its  first  teachers,  had,  as  the  Tractarians  sup- 
posed, well  nigh  faded  out  of  Protestantism.  It  was  there- 
fore to  be  restored  and  impressed  upon  its  wayward  children 
in  a  second  and  superior  Reformation,  which  should  be 
1  Matthew  Arnold :     Essays  in  Criticism,  p.  x. 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       109 

modeled  not  upon  Lutheranism  nor  Calvinism  but  upon  the 
Laudian  tenets  of  the  Stuart  period. 

If  the  Tractarians  pictured  an  ideal  world  thus  to  be  freed 
of  its  wild  frenzies  and  bitter  inequalities,  so  did  the  con- 
temporary socialism  of  Karl  Marx.  The  vision  of  the  ab- 
negation of  riches,  of  community  in  necessities  and  of  the 
sanctity  of  poverty,  which  had  been  one  of  the  controlling 
factors  of  mediaeval  piety,  was  dispelled  by  the  commercial 
development  due  to  an  age  of  machine  production.  The  more 
potent  scheme  that  Marx  penned,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
dynastic  despotism  which  followed  the  Napoleonic  interlude, 
proposed  that,  instead  of  sharing  their  poverty,  men  should 
share  their  wealth.  The  collectivist  state  he  advocated  had 
little  in  common  with  the  monastic  ideal  of  the  Middle  Ages : 
its  essence  and  its  aims  were  frankly  material,  the  outcome 
of  the  contrasts  between  rich  and  poor,  which  the  garish 
light  of  modern  capitalism  could  not  long  conceal  and 
eventually  illuminated.  Socialism  has  been  for  reckless  spirits 
a  creed  of  force,  akin  to  anarchism ;  for  other  and  more  amen- 
able adherents  a  creed  of  peace  to  be  reduced  to  practice  by 
persuasion  and  the  recognized  rule  of  the  majority.  It  ex- 
ceeds in  significance  for  good  or  ill  all  previous  theories  of 
social  economy.  It  has  created  an  international  fellowship 
extending  over  Europe  and  America,  and  wielded  until  the 
recent  war  an  increasing  influence  upon  the  domestic  and  for- 
eign policies  of  monarchies  and  republics  alike.  The  term 
socialism  has  numerous  meanings  and  the  varieties  of  economic 
thought  which  they  indicate  contain  still  more  numerous 
errors.  The  hopeless  sons  of  want  protested  against  all  social 
institutions  and  were  disposed  to  view  sacred  ordinations  as 
nothing  more  than  defenses  of  a  plutocratic  State.  Marx 
and  his  associate  Engels  built  up  their  theses  from  the  volumes 
of  Saint  Simon  and  Ricardo,  but  their  inspiration  was  due  to 
what  they  saw  about  them.  Brissot's  famous  phrase,  "prop- 
erty is  theft,"  with  which  Proudhon  has  been  saddled,  and 
other  formulas  such  as  "labor  is  the  measure  of  value,"  "the 
price  of  labor  is  that  which  provides  the  laborer  in  general 


110  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

with  the  means  of  subsistence  and  of  perpetuating  his  species 
Trithout  either  increase  or  diminution  as  wages  increase, ' '  were 
the  texts  of  a  new  economic,  which  drew  to  itself  millions  who 
could  not  detect  its  inverted  dogmatisms  and  sonorous  subter- 
fuges but  who  viewed  with  rising  anger  the  evils  which  really 
gave  them  currency.  Its  evangel  sweeps  up  and  down  the 
world  like  an  epidemic,  requiring  no  passports,  respecting 
no  frontiers,  while  truth  travels  slowly  from  people  to  people 
and  often  loses  much  in  the  passage. 

We  are  chiefly  concerned  to  discover  beneath  the  incessant 
striving  for  material  benefits  those  moral  elements  which  the 
pulpit  avoided  because  they  were  infected  by  a  tainted  propa- 
ganda. Mr.  Herbert  Hoover  sees  in  the  present  situation  at 
home  and  abroad  the  utter  breakdown  of  Socialism,  which 
has  shown  itself,  according  to  him,  an  economic  and  a  spiritual 
fallacy.  This  is  a  weighty  verdict  against  it;  it  does  not, 
however,  relieve  Christian  preachers  from  the  necessity  of 
assuaging  the  social  discontent  which  separates  them  from 
much  of  the  best  as  well  as  the  worst  that  is  being  thought 
and  said  elsewhere,  and  which  has  also  alienated  millions  of 
men  and  women  from  the  Church.  Human  life  has  repeatedly 
been  attuned  to  a  different  key,  but  it  has  always  found  a 
working  harmony.  In  this  instance  its  opposing  factions 
would  have  been  more  speedily  reconciled  if  the  majority  of 
reformers  had  shown  more  social  wisdom,  and  the  majority 
of  churchmen  more  social  compunction.  Reinach's  comment 
that  the  socialism  of  the  Marxians  betrayed  a  long  appren- 
ticeship to  servitude  can  be  countered  by  the  statement  that 
the  conservatism  of  ecclesiastical  leaders  manifested  an  equally 
long  apprenticeship  to  indifference.  They  had  little  sympathy 
for  the  plea,  "restitution  to  the  disinherited,"  because  they 
recalled  the  various  Utopias  from  Plato  to  Edward  Bellamy, 
the  communistic  experiments  of  Campanella,  Robert  Owen, 
Fourier  and  other  theorists,  and  naturally  enough  rallied  to 
the  existing  order  for  protection  against  what  appeared  to 
them  as  the  unrolling  of  a  scroll  of  ruinous  disaster.  That 
order  was  by  no  means  desperately  wicked  in  the  eyes  of 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      111 

preachers  who  believed  in  the  old  dominance  based  solely  on 
ownership.  Nor  was  the  pain  which  is  symptomatic  of  our 
cognizance  of  reprobate  social  evils  felt  by  good  men  and 
women  half  a  century  ago.  It  has  been  accentuated  during 
the  decrease  of  the  abuses  that  evoke  it  because  we  know 
their  remnant  to  be  removable.  They  are  not  the  accidental 
maladjustments  of  an  economic  growth  which  on  the  whole 
is  beneficial,  but  the  normal  product  of  an  abnormal  system 
which  should  be  made  to  conform  to  Christian  teaching  and 
practice.  Such  is  the  logical  conclusion  reached  by  responsible 
thinkers  of  the  Anglicanism  of  Great  Britain,  and  once  it  is 
adopted  by  the  entire  Church  of  Christ,  as  I  believe  it  must 
be,  she  will  cease  to  be  fatalistic  in  her  attitude  toward  social 
iniquities  and  proceed  to  their  extermination  as  one  of  her 
primal  duties. 

Bacon's  saying  that  **the  nobler  a  soul  is  the  more  objects 
of  compassion  it  hath,"  places  clergymen  of  the  immobile 
kind  in  a  very  unfavorable  light  when  contrasted  with  not 
a  few  agitators  whom  they  thoughtlessly  crowded  to  the  wall 
or  drove  into  open  rebellion  against  the  Church.  The  anxiety 
for  doctrinal  orthodoxy  which  then  prevailed  di^  not  alleviate 
the  situation,  because  it  dealt  with  abstractions,  whereas  the 
sufferings  of  the  people  were  concrete  and  required  a  vivid 
comprehension,  or,  better  still,  an  actual  experience  upon  the 
part  of  God's  ministers  if  they  were  to  guard  the  future 
against  the  abominations  of  the  past.  No  visioned  care  of  this 
kind  was  forthcoming  from  clerics  who  lived  in  dread  of 
democracy,  and  would  not  entertain  even  its  most  reasonable 
requests.  The  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch,  the  elaboration 
of  Calvinistic  dialectics,  the  maintenance  of  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  punishment,  the  safeguarding  of  the  principle  of  au- 
thority from  "infidel"  attacks,  the  insistence  upon  official 
prerogatives,  were  more  absorbing  themes  for  them  than  those 
voiced  by  men  in  despair,  who  asked  for  the  recognition  of 
their  elementary  rights. 

Happily  this  is  not  the  whole  truth.  There  were  always 
steadfast  preachers  of  righteousness  who  counseled  patience 


112  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

and  self-restraint,  and  remembered  the  words  of  Jesus: 
"Whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  shall  be  your 
minister;  and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you  shall  be 
your  servant."  ^  Industrial  reform,  the  housing  of  the  poor, 
the  abolition  of  sweat  shops,  an  equitable  wage,  the  diminu- 
tion of  drunkenness  and  of  disease,  were  the  watchwords 
of  courageous  divines  and  philanthropists  who  often  made 
the  pace  for  their  brethren.  Like  most  prophets  who  did 
not  utter  smooth  things,  their  expostulations  and  warnings 
were  not  always  welcomed  bj^  the  Church,  and  yet  from  them 
she  learned  the  beginnings  of  that  social  justice  which  must 
now  be -her  manifesto  if  she  is  to  win  the  formidable  groups 
which  are  unfriendly  or  indifferent  to  her.  Teachers  and 
guides  who  were  condemned  and  persecuted  for  their  hetero- 
dox views  found  an  outlet  for  their  zeal  in  the  pastoring  of  tlie 
bodies  as  well  as  the  souls  of  their  fellow  men.  Evangelicals, 
who  argued  that  a  sound  conversion  of  the  soul  would  solve 
the  social  problem,  supplemented  their  argument  with  strenu- 
ous labors  in  behalf  of  the  unfortunate  and  the  outcast. 
True,  the  humanities  which  are  a  Christian  apologetic  on 
earth  were  too  often  displaced  to  make  room  for  the  penances 
and  raptures  preparatory  for  heaven.  Yet  their  prejudice 
against  the  idea  of  any  possible  regeneration  of  society,  apart 
from  that  of  its  individual  units,  did  not  exclude  the  comple- 
mentary truth  that  regenerated  individuals  were  interdepen- 
dent members  of  society  with  duties  to  be  discharged  for  the 
common  good.  The  missionary  evangel  in  non-Christian  lands 
kept  alive  the  holier  love  which  recognized  no  social  distinc- 
tions in  Christ's  Kingdom,  and  the  teaching  that  no  soul  was 
really  acceptable  to  God,  which  did  not  enter  ethically  into 
its  broader  human  relationships  and  endeavor  to  animate 
them  with  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  was  sedulously  maintained 
in  many  notable  pulpits. 

But  the  fact  that  the  New  Testament  knows  nothing  of 
solitary  religion,  and  that  it  carries  what  may  be  called 
spiritual  communism  to  heights  which  are  anticipatory  of  the 

2  Matthew  xx:  26-27. 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       113 

bliss  of  Paradise,  was  not  emphasized  as  it  should  have  been, 
and  some  professed  believers  claimed  their  right  of  entrance 
to  a  future  state  of  perfection,  for  which  they  were  more  or 
less  incapacitated  by  their  misuse  of  the  probationary  state. 
Nor  did  the  assertion  that  the  rewards  of  the  hereafter  would 
amply  compensate  for  evils  submissively  endured  here  silence 
complainants  who  knew  that  it  evaded  the  issue,  since  they 
saw  extortioners  who  "combined  plunder  with  prayer"  as- 
sured of  the  same  celestial  privileges.  Men  of  ill-gotten  wealth 
were  far  too  conspicuous  in  the  churches,  where  they  gave 
greater  offense  to  the  genuinely  pious  and  also  to  the  profane 
than  those  of  a  similar  depravity  who  did  not  mask  their 
greed  with  hypocrisy.  The  social  and  moral  implications 
which  demonstrate  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  life  were  sup- 
pressed by  an  unjust  economic ;  the  spirit  of  Christianity  was 
mutilated  in  its  own  machineries.  The  industrial  classes  be- 
gan to  look  askance  upon  these  glaring  inconsistencies,  and 
the  temper  thus  engendered  alienated  them  in  large  numbers 
from  the  Church.  Their  recession  became  a  secession,  which 
formulated  a  program  of  its  own,  substituting  for  creedal 
beliefs  a  confession  that  often  contained  the  core  of  Scriptural 
ethics.  This  program  they  propagated  with  the  fervor  of 
zealots  for  whom  its  spread  was  an  imperative  obligation. 
It  was  sometimes  the  message  of  Israel's  seers  and  of  the  New 
Testament  recast,  adapted,  often  uncouthly  spoken,  and  not 
infrequently  weighted  down  by  doctrinaire  or  lower  con- 
siderations; yet  it  was  solicitous  of  the  welfare  of  mankind 
and  alive  with  convictions  about  the  God  of  history  and  of 
justice,  which  His  prophets  have  always  proclaimed.  Their 
ranks  might  have  been  strengthened  by  the  service  of  some  of 
the  choicest  spirits  of  the  age,  had  not  the  Church  been  too 
subservient  to  heartless  social  customs  and  oppressive  gov- 
ernments. 

These  apostles  of  labor  contended  that  in  times  of  precarious 
existence,  when  divided  classes  were  incessantly  at  variance 
and  the  daily  grind  of  poverty  and  distress  told  heavily  on 
the  masses,  life  for  such  could  be  made  tolerable  only  by  the 


114  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

thought  that  between  them  and  their  oppressors  were  the 
strong  guarantees  of  law,  of  political  equality  and  of  human- 
ity. There  was  then  no  raving  about  eradicating  the  evils 
of  capitalism  by  confiscation  and  expropriation,  nor  regrets 
that,  however  ruthlessly  such  measures  might  be  applied, 
astute  speculators  and  obstinate  survivors  of  the  capitalistic 
class  would  always  manage  to  elude  them  and  continue  to  prey 
on  the  life  of  the  community.  The  earlier  reformers  were  not 
anarchists,  nor  has  anarchy  ever  found  countenance  in  the 
liberty-loving  lands  of  our  blood.  The  chaotic  force  it  con- 
templates, which  will,  if  it  can,  finally  destroy  the  intelligent 
eooperativeness  on  which  social  salvation  depends,  has  emerged 
from  benighted  regions  where  vile  despotisms  gave  birth  to 
still  viler  despotisms.  Yet  had  the  Church  and  nominally 
Christian  states  listened  to  the  pioneers  of  the  popular  cause, 
the  later  slaves  of  absolutism  might  not  have  run  amuck.  It 
was  a  great  opportunity  lost  to  make  gains  out  of  the  growth 
of  society  as  well  as  that  of  knowledge. 

Dr.  Dale,  in  his  tribute  to  the  Evangelical  Eevival,  analyzed 
in  a  statesmanlike  fashion  its  achievements  in  religious  indi- 
vidualism and  its  failure  in  social  control.  Perhaps  it  is  too 
much  to  expect  that  any  such  awakening  shall  permeate  every 
sphere  of  faith  and  activity;  but  surely  it  could  have  better 
maintained  the  lofty  traditions  of  John  Wesley,  whose  life- 
long example  was  a  rebuke  to  wickedness  in  high  places  and 
whose  closing  words  were  a  warning  against  godless  riches 
and  a  plea  for  the  abolition  of  human  slavery,  which  he 
denounced  as  "the  sum  of  all  villainies."  Among  literary 
masters  who  supplemented  the  reformative  efforts  of  later 
Evangelicals,  like  Clarkson,  Wilberforee  and  the  elder  Ma- 
caulay,  was  Carlyle,  nothing  if  not  oracular,  with  a  shrewd 
eye  for  the  snobbery,  the  sycophancy  and  the  wealth-worship 
of  the  now-forgotten  forties  and  fifties  of  his  century.  He 
mercilessly  satirized  the  "respectability  in  a  thousand  gigs," 
which  was  scrupulously  correct  in  matters  of  religious  de- 
portment and  connection,  and  ever  and  anon  turned  aside  to 
paint  a  terrific  picture  of  the  menace  to  which  social  extremes 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       115 

are  liable.  The  permanent  part  of  his  volume  Past  and 
Present  delineates  Abbot  Sampson's  rule  in  Edmondsbury 
monastery  with  picturesque  vigor,  extracting  from  it  the 
possibility  of  the  return  of  English-speaking  democracy  to 
ancient  stability  and  order.  The  earlier,  caustic,  dry,  gen- 
erous, God-fearing  Scotchman  knew  that  the  mediaeval  Church, 
when  most  blameworthy,  was  still  the  strongest  ally  of  the 
poor,  the  champion  of  their  welfare  and  education.  The  later 
St.  Thomas  contra  mundum,  the  force-worshiping  rhetori- 
cian of  the  **cant"  and  "quackery"  diatribes,  author  of  im- 
possible theories  of  political  economy  and  of  the  apotheosis 
of  Frederick  of  Prussia,  is  no  longer  of  special  moment. 
Both  he  and  Ruskin,  a  still  more  eloquent  lay  preacher, 
found  it  far  easier  to  arraign  the  narrow  outlook  of  statesmen 
and  ecclesiastics  upon  social  problems  than  to  devise  feasible 
means  for  their  solution.  They  were  alike  in  their  detesta- 
tion of  liberalism,  in  their  fondness  for  the  past,  and  in  their 
leaning  toward  a  species  of  benevolent  autocracy  that  would 
salvage  human  wreckage  by  drafting  its  victims  in  behalf 
of  efficiency  or  of  artistic  loveliness.  They  did  not  under- 
stand the  working  man  of  Great  Britain  and  America,  or 
they  would  have  known  that  he  could  not  be  won  by  com- 
pulsion. Hence  these  two  extraordinarily  gifted  men  were 
notable  for  dramatic  rallying  cries  to  which  the  imagination 
too  readily  answers,  but  which  reason  is  compelled  to  recon- 
sider. Nor  did  they  foresee  what  they  would  have  lamented, 
the  amateur  Socialists,  the  Fabians,  the  Intellectuals,  the  In- 
ternationalists who  instil  a  class-consciousness  which  may  yet 
produce  a  less  attractive  aristocracy  than  the  one  which  is 
rapidly  disappearing.  The  contributions  of  Carlyle  and  Rus- 
kin to  the  social  problem  corroborate  the  truth  that  neither 
literary  genius  nor  laudable  sympathies  of  themselves  under- 
stand the  infirmities  and  needs  of  the  industrial  classes.  The 
principles  and  prejudices  of  manual  laborers,  their  strength 
and  weakness,  their  inmost  selves  and  fixed  ideas  are,  as  a 
rule,  a  sealed  book  to  ministers  and  laymen  who  have  not 
shared  their  lot  and  learned  their  opinions  at  first  hand. 


116  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

There  are,  however,  those  who  possess  by  instinct  what 
others  have  to  acquire  by  painful  effort.  It  was  thus  with 
Maurice,  Kingsley  and  their  associates  who  pushed  Christian 
opportunism  as  far  as  it  would  go  toward  the  reduction  of 
open  wrongs.  They  grasped  some  of  the  salient  elements  of 
the  social  question  and  foresaw  not  a  few  of  its  present  forms, 
because  they  humanized  theology  and  emphasized  the  ethical 
ideals  of  Jesus.  The  long,  ardent,  deliberate  pursuit  of 
social  justice  is  not  found  in  their  writings;  yet  one  can 
find  in  them  the  very  real  connection  between  a  truly  spir- 
itual interpretation  of  Christ 's  teaching  and  its  right  applica- 
tion to  community  life  and  morals.  They  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  regrettable  fact  that  cathedral  cities  are  sometimes 
most  laggard  in  salutary  measures,  and  orthodox  centers 
most  deficient  in  their  appreciation  of  civic  welfare.  It  is 
impossible,  even  at  this  distance,  to  read  the  books  of  Kingsley, 
which  describe  the  worst  side  of  English  landlordism  and 
depict  the  Church  as  a  fastness  for  oppressors  of  the  poor 
and  for  financial  debauchees,  without  realizing  the  greatness 
of  the  service  rendered  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  this  brave 
advocate  of  earlier  Christian  Socialism. 

Ill 

The  efforts  of  the  American  clergy,  unimpeded  by  an  alli- 
ance between  Church  and  State,  were  engaged  in  absorbing 
domestic  questions  which  involved  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  and  the  freeing  of  the  negro.  They  did  not  encounter 
the  feudal  castes  and  privileges  which  time  had  sanctioned 
in  the  Old  World,  and  for  a  period  they  were  spared  the 
chronic  irritation  created  by  the  congestion  of  city  popula- 
tions and  by  landless  peasantries.  Yet  from  the  day  of 
Lyman  Beeeher's  onslaughts  upon  the  wrongs  he  deplored 
to  that  of  his  son's  thunderings  against  national  disintegra- 
tion and  slavery,  there  was  no  lack  of  social  difficulties  nor 
of  reformers  who  essayed  their  settlement.  After  the  Civil 
War  an  era  of  unprecedented  expansion  gave  impetus  to  the 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       117 

economic  development  of  the  nation.  The  rapid  growth  of 
the  United  States,  the  admission  of  territories  into  the  Union, 
the  enormous  inflow  of  immigration,  the  taking  up  of  virgin 
land,  the  commensurate  increase  of  trade  and  wealth  and  the 
submergence  ,of  a  lingering  colonial  simplicity  and  dignity 
of  life  gave  rise  to  the  social  question  as  we  now  have  it  before 
the  Church  and  the  nation.  Poverty  reared  its  ugly  head  in 
the  larger  centers;  the  traffic  in  intoxicants  and  other  public 
evils  became  unscrupulous  and  lawless;  civic  politics  grew 
corrupt;  the  conflicts  between  capital  and  labor  were  waged 
with  a  violence  hitherto  unknown  in  the  industrial  world.  It 
is  manifestly  impossible  to  learn  everything  pertaining  to 
these  matters,  which  still  stretch  before  us  like  range  upon 
range  in  the  Himalayas.  At  their  present  stage,  the  liquor 
traffic  has  been  prohibited  by  a  constitutional  amendment. 
The  slums  and  sweat  shops,  breeding  places  of  disease,  vice 
and  crime,  are  being  slowly  eliminated.  The  establishment 
of  a  living  wage,  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor,  provision 
for  unemployment,  further  protection  of  children  and  young 
persons,  and  other  measures  which  are  intended  to  prevent 
the  degradation  of  industrial  groups  seem  in  a  fair  way  to 
be  adopted.  The  economic  framework  of  society  is  being 
scrutinized,  and  the  stimulus  of  excessive  private  gain  is 
likely  in  the  near  future  to  be  checked  by  taxation  and  a 
more  equitable  distribution  of  profits. 

The  fearless  directness  and  unfailing  optimism  character- 
istic of  the  American  people  are  due  to  their  geographical 
detachment,  to  a  history  eminently  fortunate  and  to  un- 
precedented opportunities  for  initiative  and  enterprise. 
These  factors,  together  with  freedom  from  numerous  outworn 
precedents,  have  given  the  Republic  a  peculiar  facility  for  the 
alleviation  of  her  social  difficulties.  Yet  it  is  probable,  all 
things  considered,  that  the  social  progress  of  the  British 
Empire  has  been  quite  equal  to  our  own.  The  very  proper 
distrust  of  paternalism  in  any  form  and  the  firm  belief  in 
self-realization  are  ever  present  in  English-speaking  nations. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  is  capable  of  quick  and  effective  organiza- 


118  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

tion  under  pressure,  but  he  prefers  the  individualistic  and 
democratic  systems  by  which  he  has  thus  far  achieved  his 
destiny.  He  has,  nevertheless,  become  painfully  aware  that 
the  mass,  as  distinguished  from  the  self,  must  be  upraised 
and  that  to  attain  this  end  men  and  women  must  consecrate 
themselves,  not  in  fear  nor  in  surrender  to  the  domination 
of  the  untrained,  but  in  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  to  co- 
operation. This  is  the  belief  of  individuals  in  every  walk 
of  life,  who  are  devoted  to  the  general  well-being,  and  to 
whom  the  works  of  economists  and  sociologists  from  Adam 
Smith  and  John  Stuart  Mill  to  William  H.  Mallock  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney  Webb  are  becoming  increasingly  fa- 
miliar. The  Christian  interpretations  of  society  contained  in 
books  by  clergymen  like  Dr.  John  A.  Ryan  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  Dr.  Lyman  Ab- 
bott, Professor  Harry  Ward,  the  late  Professor  Rauschenbuseh 
and  Professor  Peabody  of  Harvard  are  found  in  nearly  every 
clerical  library.  These  men  and  others  who  share  their  views 
have  expressed  afresh  those  social  ideals  that  embody  the 
love  of  mankind,  which  is  not  afraid  of  experiment  and  de- 
velopment. General  and  Mrs.  William  Booth,  Hugh  Price 
Hughes,  Cardinal  Manning,  Samuel  Keeble,  Canon  and  Mrs. 
Barnett,  Josephine  Butler,  Frances  E.  Willard,  Father  Dol- 
ling, Dr.  Edward  Judson,  Professor  Graham  Taylor  and  Jane 
Addams  are  other  examples  of  an  enlightened  leadership 
that  refuses  to  exhaust  its  energies  in  pursuing  a  routine 
supposed  to  quarantine  the  Church  in  the  world.  The  suc- 
cessful identification  of  the  Church  with  all  the  interests  of 
mankind,  to  the  end  that  humanity  may  be  redeemed  as  a 
whole  by  her  companionship  and  ministry,  will  eventually 
bring  back  to  her  sanctuaries  many  who  have  forsaken  them. 
Those  among  us  who  know  the  truth  of  Professor  Peabody 's 
remark  that  there  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  present  age  a  burning 
sense  of  social  maladjustment  need  not  be  dismayed,  pro- 
vided we  share  the  humanitarian  spirit  which  he  so  ably  sets 
forth  and  which  is  steadily  advancing  to  assuage  that  feeling. 
Without  injurious  self-assertion,  and  above  all  without  mere 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      119 

opportunism,  let  us  highly  resolve  that  the  anguish  of  that 
heart  shall  be  relieved  and  its  causes  removed. 

Courage  for  the  achievement  of  this  high  purpose  may  he  de- 
rived from  realizing  the  gains  as  well  as  the  losses  of  the 
period  in  review.  The  British  colonial  system,  now  admin- 
istered in  behalf  not  of  the  ruling  race  but  of  the  backward 
peoples  it  controls,  has  been  a  very  great  instrument  for  the 
advance  of  civilization.  Slavery  is  practically  abolished 
throughout  the  world.  Christian  teachings  and  institutions 
are  found  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  The  deification  of 
the  state  has  been  challenged  by  force  of  arms  and  is  now 
driven  to  cover  by  a  true  nationalism  as  the  basis  of  federative 
internationalism.  Science,  literature  and  statesmanship  con- 
tribute in  their  several  ways  to  the  sovereignty  of  Christ  in 
love,  justice  and  the  peace  of  the  whole  fraternity.  Yet  in 
preparing  for  your  mission  as  His  ambassadors,  you  have  but 
to  compare  what  has  been  attained  in  knowledge  with  the 
paucity  of  accomplishment  in  subduing  the  evils  that  destroy 
society,  in  order  to  define  your  specific  obligation  to  uproot 
them. 

Permit  me,  at  this  juncture,  to  offer  a  few  suggestions. 
Sermons  upon  contentious  social  matters  may  vibrate  with 
feeling  but  if  they  are  deficient  in  facts  and  in  logic  they  are 
not  to  be  excused,  however  laudable  their  motives.  The  carp-  > 
like  avidity  with  which  some  pulpiteers  gulp  down  the  latest 
revolutionary  theory  is  an  evidence  of  their  intellectual  in- 
feriority or  of  their  desire  after  a  spurious  reputation  for 
originality.  The  semi-educated  preacher  is  separated  from 
the  sober  sense  of  his  hearers  when  he  prematurely  declares 
for  any  social  method  as  the  universal  panacea.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  preacher  who  is  passive  before  wrong,  content  to 
offer  etherealized  meditations  in  seclusive  circles  withdrawn 
from  the  burdens  of  human  existence,  will  have  to  learn  that 
the  Redeemer  he  professedly  worships  is  still  in  the  press 
of  the  multitude.  /  The  spirituality  which  is  not  virile  enough  ^ 
to  develop  character  by  contact  with  the  grimmest  phases  of  i 
life  as  we  know  it  will  not  survive  the  tribunal  of  the  Son  of    ' 


120  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Man.  In  your  recoil  from  this  exotic  religiousness,  however, 
do  not  rush  to  the  other  extreme  and  inject  the  virus  of  un- 
rest into  your  utterances  on  social  questions,  careless  of  what 
delirium  and  madness  may  follow.  Some  speculations  upon 
social  progress,  disdainful  of  all  limitations,  cater  to  the 
credulous,  who  indulge  the  hope  that  the  false  gods  which 
are  to  be  set  up  will  be  more  lenient  with  their  incompetency 
than  those  which  they  now  serve.  Incentives  to  dehumanizing 
envy  assume   at  times  a  specious  appearance  of  altruism; 

/•  purveyors  of  nostrums  pose  as  the  friends  of  the  populace. 

I  Nothing  is  more  facile  than  for  a  glib  tongue  to  deceive  the 

/unwary,  and  nothing  is  more  costly  than  the  eventualities  of 

I  the  deception. 

Have  a  warm  regard  for  the  countless  Christians,  rich  and 
poor,  and  neither  rich  nor  poor,  who  are  the  stamina  of 
English-speaking  lands.  They  may  be  evolutionary  rather 
than  revolutionary  in  their  views,  but  they  are  aware  that 

(  natural  inequalities  cannot  be  eliminated  and  are  resolved  that 
artificial  ones  shall  be.  The  solidarity  of  saints,  which  is 
frequently  roughly  censured  by  the  impetuous  Ruperts  of 
social  regeneration,  is  an  essential  part  of  your  working  cap- 
ital as  a  preacher  of  righteousness.  The  rejuvenated  senti- 
ment which  precedes  that  regeneration  is  made  possible  by 
Christian  conviction  and  by  its  resolute  action.  It  is  not  by 
chance  that  the  most  hopeful  features  of  an  ethical  renais- 
sance, as  free  from  the  plagues  of  anarchy  as  from  those  of 
autocracy,  are  to  be  found  in  those  Christian  commonwealths 
to  which  world-leadership  is  now  assigned. 

Be  explicit  in  your  differentiation  between  humanizing  and 
Christianizing  the  people.  Reform  of  any  sort  is  not  New 
Testament  regeneration,  nor  is  the  worship  of  the  humanities 
the  worship  of  holiness,  or  Athens  might  have  been  the 
permanent  shrine  of  devotion.  Greek  culture  was  the  best 
the  earth  has  had,  and  yet  its  ablest  modern  interpreter, 
Matthew  Arnold,  reminded  us  that  men  could  not  live  by  it. 
The  impressive  lessons  of  the  past  contradict  the  empiricism 
that  learned  persons  are  necessarily  the  friends  of  social  wel- 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      121 

fare  and  educated  communities  the  forerunners  of  God's 
Kingdom.  Nations  steeped  in  artistic  sentimentalism  and 
scientific  lore  have  bewildered  us  by  their  relapses  into  bar- 
barism. These  moral  aberrations  show  that  social  redemp- 
tion has  to  be  coordinated  with  individual  regeneration  in 
order  that  the  wickedness  you  lament  may  be  assailed  from 
within  and  from  without.  The  New  Testament  has  placed 
its  imprimatur  on  these  tactics  and  your  Master  is  their 
supreme  Exemplar. 

Unify  your  thinking  on  the  social  question  that  it  may 
become  the  parent  of  a  constructive  message.  Some  sermons 
fall  short  in  this  respect  and  exalt  poverty  as  the  fountain 
of  virtue;  others,  equally  deficient,  denounce  it  as  the  asso- 
ciate of  vice.  The  poor  man  is  blessed  and  again  he  is 
banned.  The  eulogy  of  poverty  has  often  ended  in  the  super- 
stition that  hallows  beggary  and  reserves  the  blessings  of 
heaven  for  the  parasites  of  earth.  The  defamation  of  poverty 
is  a  scandalous  reflection  upon  multitudes  of  deserving  folk 
whose  temporal  circumstances  are  in  every  way  honorable 
to  them.  Evil  doing  is  confined  to  no  class;  the  precepts  of 
justice  and  mercy  are  obeyed  by  members  of  all  classes.  Lust, 
idleness,  anger,  revenge,  are  shared  alike  by  educated  and 
uneducated,  rich  and  poor.  These  passions  inhere  in  human 
nature  and  their  germs  are  as  perniciously  active  in  the  not- 
able sinners  of  history  as  in  its  vilest  criminals.  At  neither 
end  of  the  social  scale  is  there  a  marked  predominance  of 
good  or  of  evil;  yet  much  preaching,  social  discussion  and 
reformative  legislation  lean  toward  the  idea  that  entire  groups 
of  men  and  women  can  be  arranged  according  to  their 
material  possessions. 

Again,  the  pulpit's  function  is  not  to  advocate  theories  of 
social  economy  but  to  provide  inspirational  direction.  Preach- 
ers are  hardly  ever  wise  counselors  upon  industrial  affairs, 
upon  questions  involving  work  and  wages,  production  and 
distribution.  Neither  their  training  nor  their  proclivities 
equip  them  to  be  judges  and  dividers  of  other  men 's  holdings. 
' '  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead ' '  may  sound  harshly,  until  you 


122  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

recollect  that  it  prevents  a  preacher  from  diverting  his  powers 
into  minor  channels  and  consecrates  him  to  the  heralding  of 
the  Evangel  of  life.  Make  war  on  recognized  evils,  whether 
they  stalk  abroad  or  skulk  in  secret ;  upon  the  sickening  mix- 
ture of  protestations  of  high  piety  with  low  contra-social  con- 
duct; upon  tubercular  areas,  fevered  dens,  windowless  tene- 
ments, child  labor,  open  profligacy,  and  the  wickedness  of  the 
hidden  man  of  the  heart  which  is  the  author  of  them  all.  Do 
so  in  the  spirit  which  overcomes,  not  by  denunciation  alone, — a 
habit  that  may  give  you  far  more  relief  than  it  affords  the 
causes  you  espouse, — but  by  instruction  and  by  the  affirma- 
tions of  righteousness  which  alone  can  prevail  against  positive 
evils.  Let  your  appeal  be  to  reason  as  well  as  to  sentiment,  in- 
tended not  merely  to  persuade  but  to  convince  and  to  crown 
conviction  with  that  conversion  of  character  and  deeds  which 
it  is  meant  to  produce. 

I  venture  to  break  a  lance  with  those  who  contend  that  the 
advocacy  of  social  righteousness  should  be  the  absorbing  theme 
of  your  ministry.  When  everything  has  been  said  for  it  that 
can  be  said,  the  fact  remains  that  the  restitution  of  the  entire 
man  after  the  pattern  of  his  Creator  is  the  whole  of  which 
social  righteousness  is  but  a  part.  The  strategies  of  preaching 
also  have  to  be  remembered  here.  I  have  found  frontal  at- 
tacks in  the  pulpit  apt  to  arouse  needless  antagonism  unless 
deftly  made.  By  means  of  inference,  implication,  indirection, 
you  not  only  avoid  the  monotony  of  presentation  which  besets 
some  speakers  but  often  awaken  the  moral  susceptibilities  of 
an  audience.  Do  not  play  on  one  string  till  it  breaks,  nor  re- 
peat accusations  until  they  become  stale.  At  all  times  insist 
upon  the  New  Testament  doctrines  as  the  absolute  principles 
of  a  Christian  sociology.  When  you  have  adequately  stated 
and  applied  them  to  modern  conditions  your  social  work  is 
well  done,  and  he  is  a  resolute  person  who  ventures  to  repudi- 
ate them.  They  are  the  succor  of  the  individual  and  the  com- 
munity conscience,  of  the  national  ethic,  of  international  law- 
fulness. Many  to  whom  you  appeal  exceed  you  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  classes  and  their  callings,  of  groups  and  their  necessi- 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING       133 

ties ;  but  you  have  the  effective  Word  that  covers  them  all  as 
the  sky  over-arches  the  landscape.  That  Word  should  become 
by  your  dispensation  the  source  of  those  lasting  benefits  for 
society  which,  as  history  demonstrates,  proceed  from  the  moral 
and  religious  changes  effected  by  the  Gospel  in  the  heart  of 
man. 

We  could  hardly  imagine  a  more  engaging  inquiry  than  to 
ask,  What  is  to  be  the  ultimate  outcome  of  the  recent  victory 
of  the  Allies  which  is  yet  far  from  being  a  complete  moral  tri- 
umph? But  it  is  more  requisite  for  you  to  educate  modem 
democracy  for  its  new  status  and  responsibilities.  It  is  sure 
to  expand,  to  intensify,  perhaps  to  harden,  and  to  use  its  new- 
found strength  for  new-found  purposes.  It  has  ameliorated 
conservative  churchmanship,  dictated  political  platforms, 
ended  the  subjection  of  women,  modified  the  ideals  of  the  fam- 
ily, of  property,  of  trade,  of  profits.  What  will  it  not  do 
when  it  fully  comes  to  its  own?  Talleyrand  called  the  pro- 
genitors of  the  French  Revolution  an  aristocracy  of  black- 
guards, thus  showing  that  nothing  makes  clever  people  reason 
so  badly  as  prejudice.  Yet,  as  a  name  with  many  meanings, 
democracy  is  liable  to  confusion,  from  which  preachers  are  not 
exempt,  who  identify  it  with  numerical  majorities  or  with  the 
poor  or  the  laboring  classes.  In  its  deepest  and  broadest 
sense  it  signifies  "a  certain  general  condition  of  society,  hav- 
ing historic  origins;  not  only  involving  the  political  doctrine 
of  popular  sovereignty,  but  representing  a  cognate  group  of 
corresponding  tendencies  over  the  whole  field  of  moral,  social, 
and  even  of  spiritual  life  within  the  democratic  community. ' '  ^ 
Already  the  tides  of  popular  freedom  are  nearing  the  full,  and 
if  they  should  presently  find  an  undue  release  we  are  not  to 
suppose  that  they  will  surely  bring  us  to  a  safe  anchorage.  Men 
are  still  prone  to  be  eager  for  what  flatters  their  pride  rather 
than  for  what  serves  the  good  of  their  souls.  Although  the  in- 
spiration of  modem  democracy  is  found  in  its  conviction  of  an 
upward  and  onward  destiny  for  mankind,  its  most  fascinating 
ideals  may  prove  faulty  when  submitted  to  experimental  tests. 
8  Viscount  Morley:     Miacellcmiea,  Fourth  Series,  p.  171. 


124  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

The  future  peace  and  progress  of  the  world  will  depend  upon 
whether  democracy  is  a  more  perfect  organ  for  the  demagogue, 
the  partisan,  the  spoilsman,  the  corruptionist ;  or  a  sublime 
baptism  of  the  spirit  of  nations  into  the  stem  and  high  con- 
ceptions of  De  Tocqueville,  Marshall,  Mazzini,  Lincoln,  Glad- 
stone, Bright  and  Roosevelt.  Certainly  the  Church  must 
not  be  lulled  again  into  a  false  security,  a  drowsy  feeling  of 
things  accomplished,  or  listen  to  those  who  add  another  pre- 
dicted millennium  to  the  museum  of  such  millenniums  in  the 
past.  Her  place  is  at  the  head  of  the  column,  not,  as  too 
often  heretofore,  querulous  and  questioning  in  the  rear.  She 
has  to  watch  against  the  dangers  and  work  for  the  advantages 
of  the  momentous  experiment  on  which  society  is  entering  and 
which  aims  at  making  government  an  expression  of  the  mind 
of  the  state.  But  who  or  what  shall  purify  and  illuminate 
that  mind  or  shepherd  the  shepherds  themselves?  The  aver- 
age man  is  doubtless  an  admirable  person,  but  one  does  not 
have  to  be  cynical  to  understand  that  his  preferences  are 
usually  cautious  and  stationary.  He  hates  to  be  thought  medi- 
ocre, and  yet  he  is  not  always  given  to  those  larger  views  of 
civilization  which  lessen  mediocrity ;  and  if  those  views  do  not 
tend  ostensibly  to  his  own  profit,  he  is  apt  to  favor  others 
which  seem  to  promise  immediate  benefits.  When  his  social 
disabilities  are  removed,  must  everything  be  brought  down  to 
his  level,  to  that  excessive  uniformity  which  is  adverse  to  spir- 
itual values?  Or  should  we  encourage  another  aristocracy, 
such  as  our  best  men  and  women  constitute,  which  lives  not 
for  its  own  sake  but  for  the  sake  of  all  ?  Preachers  will  have 
to  consider  these  issues  on  which  John  Stuart  Mill,  distant  as 
he  seems  now  to  some  of  us,  sheds  light.  He  pleaded  for  a 
social  science,  evolved  by  capable  authorities,  as  exact  in  its 
rules  and  applications,  as  correct  in  its  diagnoses  and  remedies, 
as  physical  science.  This  he  failed  to  secure,  but  the  failure 
was  more  influential  than  some  recent  so-called  triumphs  of 
popular  rule.  Leadership,  in  brief,  is  essential  to  democ- 
racy, which  is  foredoomed  unless  supplied  with  the  type  of 
character  that  does  not  permit  its  aims  and  methods  to  be 


MODERN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  PREACHING      125 

actuated  by  private  interests.  Moral  and  political  educa- 
tion cannot  be  imparted  by  civic  catechisms,  however  virtu- 
ous their  sentiments.  It  can  only  be  communicated  by  per- 
sonalities fiUed  with  the  sense  of  responsibility  to  God  and  to 
their  fellowmen.  Ethical  energy  of  the  highest  kind  and  a 
spiritual  culture  which  is  at  present  too  rare,  are  requisites 
for  the  uplifting  of  democracy  to  those  heights  which  men 
imagine  far  more  often  than  they  gain.  The  wise,  judicial 
ordering  of  the  new  freedom  will  tax  every  genuine  quality  of 
Christian  statesmanship  in  the  pulpit  and  out  of  it.  It  should 
be  your  ambition  to  assist  in  bearing  its  impending  burdens 
by  promoting  Christianized  progress  as  against  selfish  nation- 
alism, or  denationalized  Levantism,  or  oligarchical  rule,  or  the 
tyranny  of  mob  law. 

Such,  then,  are  the  modem  social  tendencies  which  call  for 
preachers  who  are  fortified  by  the  belief  that  action  cannot  go 
ahead  of  ideas,  nor  ideas  be  produced  without  character,  nor 
character  be  generated  without  Christ.  Then  reason  will  not 
have  to  be  jettisoned  at  the  biddance  of  the  crowd,  nor  way- 
ward impulses  be  substituted  for  orderly  inquiry,  nor  democ- 
racy be  confined  to  policies  that  are  emotional  rather  than  ra- 
tional, popular  rather  than  righteous.  The  process  is  an  open 
one,  the  understanding  of  which  is  simplified  because  Chris- 
tianity and  the  modern  social  problem  are  at  last  in  vital  con- 
tact. The  Church  knows  that  the  world,  no  longer  dumb,  list- 
less, exanimate,  is  demanding  great  things  of  the  disciples  of 
Jesus,  who  are  far  more  inclined  than  formerly  to  contribute 
their  share  of  saving  social  effort  for  mankind.  The  religious 
and  moral  consequences  of  this  changed  attitude  embrace  the 
righteous  dealings  of  internationalism,  the  perpetuity  of  an 
equitable  industrial  and  universal  peace,  the  reconciliation  of 
class  with  class  by  justice  and  not  by  doles.  An  inestimable 
value  is  placed  to-day  upon  the  right  of  the  individual  to  the 
fullest  development  of  personality.  Yet  society  is  not,  as 
some  social  philosophers  would  have  us  believe,  the  sole  inter- 
preter of  human  nature  and  its  needs.  The  claims  of  our 
Faith  in  behalf  of  the  human  unit  and  its  revelation  of  the 


126  AMBA"SSADORS  OF  GOD 

divine  dignity  and  wonderful  destiny  of  every  single  soul  have 
introduced  a  new  ethic  into  all  affairs.  We  derive  our  ideals 
not  from  below  but  from  above  and  must  keep  them  in  work- 
ing relation  with  the  earth.  Service,  not  material  profit, 
should  be  the  chief  motive  of  human  activity  and  human 
achievement.  And  although  the  inescapable  responsibility  of 
Christian  men  and  women  for  complete  devotion  to  the  evolu- 
tional reconstruction  of  the  entire  social  system  commits  them 
to  no  present  or  future  measures  as  finalities  for  this  end,  it 
does  exact  from  them  an  essential  and  practical  application 
of  the  principles  of  the  New  Testament  to  all  such  matters  as 
property,  industrial  and  capitalistic  organization,  democratic 
rule  and  public  education.  In  a  word,  they  are  pledged  to  the 
maintenance  and  extension  of  the  monarchy  of  Christ  in  the 
world  that  now  is,  as  well  as  in  that  which  is  to  come. 


CHAPTER  IV 
CROSS  CURRENTS  WHICH  AFFECT  PREACHING 


Therefore  seeing  we  have  this  ministry,  even  as  we  obtained  mercy, 
we  faint  not:  but  we  have  renounced  the  hidden  things  of  shame, 
not  walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling  the  word  of  God  deceitfully; 
but  by  manifestation  of  the  truth  commending  ourselves  to  every 
man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God. 

II  Corinthians  iv :  1-2. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CROSS  CURRENTS  WHICH  AFFECT  PREACHING 

Contrary  groups — The  misanthrope  and  others — The  secular  Press — 
Popular  fiction — Sensationalism — Negativism — Pronounced  in- 
dividualism— Sectarianism — Church  unity — Need  of  a  catholic 
theology — The  ultimate  phase  of  the  Church. 

You  are  frequently  advised  in  a  time  like  the  present,  so 
intellectually  acute  yet  so  profoundly  disturbed,  when  every 
reason  for  faith  is  probed  to  its  depth,  every  human  institu- 
tion called  in  question,  that  the  preacher  should  view  with 
sympathetic  understanding  those  popular  tendencies,  the 
deeper  causes  of  which  have  been  discussed  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  No  one  disputes  the  wisdom  of  the  advice,  never- 
theless the  significance  of  your  interpretation  of  the  common 
mind  depends  upon  your  previous  possession  of  the  mind  of 
the  Master.  Fellowship  with  Him  is  the  secret  of  a  strength 
that  "always  moves  and  cannot  die,"  of  a  freedom  that  saves 
His  servants  from  undue  subjectivism  or  imitative  impression- 
ism. The  divine  energy  He  transmits  through  the  conse- 
crated personality  of  the  preacher  clothes  sacred  edicts  with 
authority,  wrecks  the  dominion  of  sin,  upbuilds  moral  man- 
hood and  purifies  conduct.  Infinite  need  craving  satisfaction, 
limitless  distress  calling  for  succor,  rapidly  running  tides  of 
public  agitation,  social  stagnancy  and  indifference  bespeak- 
ing convulsion,  are  trials  of  your  confidence  in  the  divine  Gos- 
pel. If  nothing  is  certain  in  its  content,  there  is  no  certainty 
in  ethics,  no  moral  obligation  incumbent  upon  all  alike;  the 
will  of  man,  not  the  will  of  God,  is  then  the  rule  of  life,  and 
every  one  has  the  right  to  do  what  he  has  the  means  of  doing. 
An  unswerving  belief  in  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament 
and  their  transforming  forces  is  the  only  criterion  of  judg- 

129 


130  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ment  among  the  ever  fluctuating  welter  of  human  opinions. 
After  you  have  brought  to  bear  upon  modern  problems  the 
array  of  sifted  fact,  the  light  of  tried  experience  and  of 
sound  reasoning,  their  ultimate  solvent  is  found  in  the  Evangel 
of  Jesus.  Avoid,  then,  the  error  of  confusing  its  eternal 
realities  with  things  that  are  merely  lengthy  or  for  the  mo- 
ment protuberant.  Concentrate  your  attention  upon  the  un- 
quenchable light  of  the  Incarnation,  which  still  shines  in  the 
darkness  and  shows  that  the  fate  of  humanity  is  bound  up  in 
the  reign  of  Christ  and  that  the  response  to  His  appeal  is  to 
be  obtained  from  the  aroused  conscience  of  mankind.  With 
these  observations  in  mind,  let  us  continue  our  survey  of  the 
prospects  of  the  pulpit  and  the  difficulties  it  encounters,  with- 
out abating  one  jot  of  heart  or  hope. 

Among  the  trying  folk  with  whom  you  may  have  dealings, 
none  will  tax  your  patience  and  hope  more  than  the  mis- 
anthrope, whom  Aristotle  described  as  a  being  either  below  or 
above  the  rest  of  mankind.  He  dwells  apart,  not  only  from 
preachers  but  from  all  men,  and  will  not  be  conciliated.  For 
one  reason  or  another,  always  insufficient  to  justify  an  atti- 
tude so  unnatural,  he  has  come  to  distrust  and  to  dislike,  if 
not  indeed  to  despise,  his  fellow  creatures.  You  may  be  sure 
that  the  misanthrope  knows  nothing  about  the  "peace  which 
passeth  understanding,"  since  no  one  can  be  right  with  God 
who  is  so  woefully  wrong  with  man.  Whatever  his  malady 
may  be,  whether  it  is  an  inverted  egoism  which  supposes  that 
it  has  monopolized  for  itself  what  little  virtue  there  is  on 
earth,  or  some  other  disease,  undiagnosed,  which  festers  un- 
checked in  his  soul,  his  ease  is  serious  and  urgent,  and  the 
only  cure  for  it  is  the  renewal  of  his  being  through  spiritual 
regeneration.  Then  there  is  the  unemotional  individual, 
whose  mind  works  with  mechanical  precision  uninfluenced 
by  sentiment,  who  finds  constant  pleasure  in  the  dissec- 
tion of  religious  beliefs,  laws  and  customs,  in  exposing 
what  he  deems  their  numerous  imperfections,  and  devising 
fanciful  substitutes  for  them.  He  takes  into  account  every 
fact  except  human  nature  itself,  and  seeks  to  refashion  the 


CROSS  CURRENTS  131 

world  according  to  his  own  pattern.  He  often  finds  it  an  easy 
and  always  a  congenial  matter  to  persuade  ardent  idealists 
who  have  experienced  a  crushing  and  bitter  sense  of  failure 
and  disappointment,  that  current  Christianity  is  a  thing  of 
delays,  compromises,  intrigues  and  deceptions.  Closely  akin 
to  this  species  of  critic  is  the  out-and-out  unbeliever  who  has 
succumbed  so  completely  to  despair  about  the  final  issue  of 
things  that  he  is  thankful  that  no  life  lives  forever.  And  at 
no  far  remove  is  the  believer  who  has  revived  a  Manicheism 
which  divides  the  universe  between  good  and  evil,  and  at- 
tributes to  the  latter  a  regnancy  that  deprives  God  of  His  sov- 
ereignty. Standing  apart,  saddened  spectators  of  the  per- 
plexing incongruities  of  the  times,  are  hosts  of  despondent 
spirits,  within  and  without  the  churches,  who  are  almost  ready, 
however  reluctantly,  to  abandon  as  hopeless  the  world  in 
which  they  live.  The  disappearance  of  familiar  landmarks 
which  were  supposedly  permanent  and  the  widespread  con- 
viction that  human  nature  is  a  great  deal  better  than  most 
theologies  in  the  past  have  admitted,  have  also  added  to  the 
religious  unrest  and  to  the  decrease  of  church  attendance,  con- 
ditions distinctly  injurious  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  health 
of  the  people,  and  which  are  not  met  by  mere  denunciation. 

Sometimes  the  spirit  of  men  and  women  is  more  accessible 
for  our  ultimate  purpose  than  are  their  formal  beliefs.  Those 
who  show  an  outward  deference  to  the  Church,  while  they  re- 
pudiate her  spiritual  control,  constitute  a  more  stubborn  fac- 
tion than  others  who  are  nearer  to  faith  and  love  in  life  and 
deed  than  in  profession.  This  pronounced  individualism, 
which  is  one  of  the  difficulties  with  which  the  modem  ministry 
has  to  contend,  received  its  earlier  impetus  during  the  Refor- 
mation, when  its  curt,  contemptuous  challenge  of  sacerdotal 
abuse  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny  was  followed  by  an  over- 
eager  intellectualism  that  divided  Protestantism  and  bred  the 
temper  which  rebels  against  a  common  religious  practice  and 
discipline.  Living  as  you  do  in  the  ebb  and  fiow  of  that  his- 
toric upheaval,  you  cannot  enjoy  its  immense  gains  without 
also   enduring  its  losses.    Yet   the    Christian   ministry   has 


132  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

known  few  more  prophetical  seasons  than  those  of  the  last 
four  hundred  years,  and  the  inference  is  permissible  that  it 
will  know  them  again.  Just  now,  however,  the  pulpit  is  pat- 
ronized, not  obeyed,  and  the  clergy  are  indorsed  by  certain 
social  groups  onlj'-  when  they  manifest  the  love  for  conserva- 
tism which  is  associated  with  the  dread  of  new  ideas.  Com- 
placent and  non-committal  prudence  of  character  is  consid- 
ered judicious  because  it  refrains  from  judging,  and  impartial 
because  it  is  invertebrate.  If  a  minister  confines  himself 
strictly  to  parochial  matters,  he  is  eulogized  as  a  model  of  dis- 
cretion; if  he  upbraids  grave  public  evils,  he  is  accused  of 
recklessness.  The  sanctuaried  message  which  avoids  burning 
questions  of  right  and  justice  and  is  always  consolatory  when, 
at  intervals,  it  should  be  purgative,  is  highly  commended  by 
some  laymen  who  lament  the  rarity  of  that  particular  kind  of 
discourse  they  term  "the  unadulterated  Gospel":  something 
too  sacred  for  contact  with  the  earthly  affairs  in  which  they 
are  immersed  six  days  of  the  week  and  about  which  they  are 
exceedingly  sensitive  on  the  Lord's  Day.  In  reality  this 
preaching  is  a  makeshift  which  sacrifices  the  scope  and  mean- 
ing of  the  Gospel  to  the  social  and  ethical  prepossessions  of 
some  of  its  hearers. 

Then,  too,  the  secular  press  assumes  the  right  to  prescribe 
the  boundaries  within  which  prophetic  genius  must  operate; 
occasionally  putting  on  the  magisterial  manner  of  a  Sir  Oracle 
and  speaking  of  a  righteously  outraged  and  intrepid  minister 
as  though  he  had  left  the  temple  to  feed  strange  fires,  or  sacri- 
legiously exposed  his  calling  to  obloquy  and  contempt.  The 
warmest  tribute  some  would-be  censors  have  to  offer  a  deceased 
minister  is  that  he  earned  everybody's  good  will — a  very 
doubtful  compliment  at  the  best  and  one  which  Jesus  never  re- 
ceived. Even  in  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  unfortunate,  more 
than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  funds  for  which  are  obtained  in 
or  through  the  Church,  the  clergy  are  usually  ignored.  The 
names  that  garnish  the  literature  of  eleemosynary  societies  are 
largely  drawn  from  political,  legal  and  commercial  circles. 
What  has  become  of  the  honorable  place  which  the  American 


CROSS  CURRENTS  133 

pastor  filled  when  his  fellow  citizens  rejoiced  to  second  his 
efforts  in  education,  in  ethics,  in  the  cleansing  of  the  Augean 
stables  of  municipal  corruption  and  the  preservation  of  na- 
tional unity  ?  Of  course  opportunities  of  this  sort  do  not  pre- 
sent themselves  at  every  stage,  but  when  they  have  done  so  the 
ministry  has  often  forfeited  them  by  its  blunders,  its  timidity, 
its  acquiescence  in  the  secularization  of  society.  Clergymen 
who  would  not  submit  to  the  predominance  of  secular  inter- 
ests, who  resented,  as  you  should  resent,  the  stupid  boycott 
by  those  interests  of  an  intelligent  and  unselfish  public  serv- 
ice upon  the  part  of  the  pulpit,  have  been  chided  by  their 
straiter  brethren.  In  contradistinction  to  this  narrowness 
recall  the  stimulating  example  of  the  late  Bishop  Potter,  who 
once  summoned  a  derelict  Mayor  of  New  York  City  to  the 
bar  of  public  opinion,  and  on  another  occasion  declared  be- 
fore the  President  of  the  Republic  that  the  national  recti- 
tude had  deteriorated.  These  instances  of  fearless  remon- 
strance were  as  sagacious  as  they  were  salutary,  and  evinced 
a  righteous  use  of  great  talents  and  of  a  commanding  clerical 
position  to  elevate  public  morals  and  also  to  increase  the  dig- 
nity and  worth  of  the  ministerial  office. 

There  are  many  to-day  who  assume  that  by  its  expansion  in 
multifarious  directions  life  has  been  carried  beyond  the  con- 
trol of  faith.  We  are  told  that  the  circumstances  which  once 
sustained  Christianity  have  ceased  to  do  so ;  that  it  has  lost  its 
vital  character  and  is  now  an  optional  matter.  Of  course,  if 
it  has  no  divine  inspiration  left  in  it,  no  more  conquests  can 
be  made  by  it,  and  its  defenders  are  thrown  back  exclusively 
upon  its  heroic  past.  It  may  be  that  the  comparative  loss  of 
confidence  I  am  describing  comes  in  part  from  the  increase  of 
public  education.  There  is  now  less  of  blind  belief  and  a 
more  acute  spirit  of  inquiry,  by  which  creeds  and  institutions 
of  every  kind  are  judged.  Former  distinctions  between  the 
preacher  and  the  people  have  faded  in  the  light  of  a  wider 
common  knowledge.  The  peaks  are  lower,  the  general  level  is 
perhaps  higher;  yet  this  change  does  not  compensate  for  the 
decline  in  that  meditative  reverence  which  is  man's  true  atti- 


134  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

tude  when  he  would  inquire  of  his  Maker.  Buckle  insists  that 
doubt  is  the  progressive  force;  be  that  as  it  may,  the  crude 
thinking  and  hysterical  speech  which  attend  much  modem 
doubt  are  a  serious  hindrance  to  progress.  The  suggestions 
that  would  rob  preaching  of  every  vital  function  and  ag- 
gressive feature  are  perhaps  best  answered  by  philosophers 
guiltless  of  the  suspicion  of  orthodoxy.  They  are  fully  per- 
suaded that  the  growth  of  ideas,  the  increase  of  wealth,  the 
surgings  of  the  social  systems,  the  orgy  of  incorrect  thinking 
and  false  use  of  language,  the  doctrinaire  tendencies  which 
it  is  the  fashion  to  hold  up  as  idealisms,  the  rivalries  of  na- 
tions and  races,  make  Christianity  not  less  but  more  indis- 
pensable, and  its  faithful  proclamation  an  imperative  duty. 
The  appetite  for  the  temporal,  the  ruthless  exploitation  of 
moralities,  the  clamor  for  individual  rights  at  the  expense  of 
communal  good,  the  indifference  to  what  is  given,  the  greed 
for  what  is  received,  the  open  or  tacit  contempt  for  first  prin- 
ciples, the  desertion  of  sacred  places  and  precepts — are  from 
our  standpoint  self-condemnatory  and  will,  if  unchecked  by  a 
reasonable  righteousness,  overthrow  the  marvelous  civilization 
which  it  has  taken  three  thousand  years  to  build.  The 
preacher  who  sees  the  dire  possibilities  of  a  day  of  inflated  ar- 
rogance followed  by  a  night  of  woe  and  disillusionment  has 
learned  the  deadly  fallacy  of  placing  moral  effects  ahead  of 
their  causes  or  of  soliciting  from  the  natural  man  a  justice 
and  stability  for  which  he  is  utterly  incapable,  apart  from 
the  saving  health  of  the  Gospel.  The  pathetic  exclamation  of 
the  prophet:  "Oh  that  thou  hadst  hearkened  to  my  com- 
mandments !  then  had  thy  peace  been  as  a  river,  and  thy  right- 
eousness as  the  waves  of  the  sea,"  is  entirely  appropriate  to 
the  present  situation,  and  the  chief  solvent  of  its  painful  prob- 
lems. The  world  is  still  blinded  by  the  fatuous  conceit  of 
disordered  brains  that  these  coveted  blessings  of  which  the 
prophet  speaks  can  be  had  without  previous  submission  to  its 
Maker's  mandates.  And  one  of  your  first  duties  is  to  insist 
that  those  mandates  must  be  obeyed  if  a  true  prosperity  is  to 
be  attained ;  that  the  religious  destitution  which  is  created  by 


CROSS  CURRENTS  135 

flouting  them  is  the  prolific  source  of  personal  sin,  of  social 
paralysis  and  of  the  terrors  that  afflict  mankind. 

Take  advantage  of  this  condition  to  enter  the  larger  terri- 
tories of  human  activity.  Utilize  by  every  remunerative 
method  the  potencies  of  a  penitential  hour  before  it  lapses. 
Avoid  the  separatism  that  has  been  the  fetish  of  the  pulpit. 
Comply  with  the  proper  demands  your  fellow  men  make  upon 
your  ministry,  which  may  again  become  the  guardian  power 
likely  to  be  taken  at  its  word,  when  it  will  have  to  verify  itself 
by  its  religious  achievements.  Let  nothing  induce  you  to  re- 
linquish the  breadth,  the  sympathy,  the  open  mindedness  which 
give  out  force  and  vitality  without  losing  their  own  activity. 
Consolidate  the  gains  of  your  greater  and  nobler  interests  as  a 
preacher  by  relating  them  to  affirmative  rather  than  prohibi- 
tory goodness,  to  a  goodness  rescued  from  the  enervation  of 
segregated  pietism  and  eventuating  in  ethical  habits.  Chosen, 
as  you  are,  to  uphold  the  things  that  are  of  God,  without 
which  men  would  not  be  men,  but  evil  and  miserable  beings, 
vigorously  contend  for  robust  virtues  as  against  neutral 
shades  of  character.  The  religion  which  is  embodied  in  con- 
duct does  not  exhaust  the  content  of  New  Testament  doctrine, 
but  it  does  give  it  the  setting  that  obtains  an  audience  with 
those  who  are  beyond  the  pale  by  emphasizing  the  antecedents 
of  redemptive  faith  and  by  anticipating  its  deeper  results  in 
holiness  of  motive  and  deed. 

Those  who  rely  upon  the  semblance  and  not  the  reality  of 
being  abound  everywhere,  enamored  of  their  idols,  averse  to 
reflection,  as  ignorant  theoretically  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
materialism  they  practice  as  of  the  spiritualities  they  evade. 
Among  them  are  the  supercilious,  who  crave  better  bread  than 
can  be  made  with  wheat  and  who  illustrate  the  saying  that 
"the  truth  shall  be  in  their  right  hand,  yet  they  shall  not  know 
it."  Others  of  an  excellent  sort  try  to  penetrate  to  a  solid 
basis  of  ideals,  or  implore  you  with  moving  sincerity  to  read 
for  them  the  riddle  of  life's  contradictions.  The  larger  num- 
ber of  those  outside  the  Churches  is  too  loosely  aligned  for 
hard  and  fast  classification,  or  too  prosaic  to  rivet  the  attention 


136  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  the  casual  observer.  But  no  expert  skill  is  required  to  dem- 
onstrate the  sure  reaction  from  excessive  dogma  to  incapacitat- 
ing doubt.  The  statements  of  zealots  whose  whirling  words 
about  matters  of  religion  arouse  resentful  questioning  in  their 
intelligent  hearers  have  become  wearisome  by  repetition.  In- 
tellectual outrages  which  thoughtful  Christians  deplore  are 
frequently  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  their  Lord,  Whose 
cause  has  received  more  hurt  from  its  foolish  friends  than  its 
most  astute  foes  could  inflict  upon  it.  "The  wicked  are 
wicked,  no  doubt,  and  they  fall,  and  they  come  by  their 
deserts,  but  who  can  tell  the  mischief  which  the  very  righteous 
do  ?"  The  varied  genius  of  these  groups  for  escaping  the  Gos- 
pel cannot  equal  its  genius  for  their  arrest.  Despite  pride, 
Pharisaism,  hardness,  doubt,  remoteness  or  fear,  ultimately 
they  will  have  to  submit  to  the  truths  you  represent.  Gather 
them,  therefore,  into  your  heart 's  purpose  and  desire ;  spread 
before  them  the  bountiful  provisions  of  God's  eternal  love  in 
Christ.  The  brotherhood  they  have  recently  glimpsed  at  the 
crisis  of  a  universal  fate  can  be  made  real  and  near.  Their 
differences  and  the  difficulties  these  create  are  the  very  stuff 
of  your  success  as  preachers. 

Again,  the  modern  pulpit  is  confronted  by  the  rivalry  of 
the  popular  novel.  It  is  not  with  you  as  it  was  with  the 
preachers  of  preceding  centuries,  whose  teachings  were  dis- 
pensed to  congenial  constituencies.  A  considerable  section  of 
the  public  now  gets  what  theology  it  has  outside  the  Church. 
Hazlitt  once  observed  that  a  philosopher  who  was  a  writer  of 
romance  was  a  rare  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  letters ;  what 
would  he  have  said  of  romancers  who  have  become  self-con- 
stituted doctors  of  divinity,  ratifying  or  rejecting  articles  of 
faith  as  they  please,  or  settling  in  any  conceivable  way  su- 
preme questions  of  God,  character  and  human  fate?  Yet  one 
could  name  a  hundred  story-writers,  ranging  from  George 
Eliot  to  H.  G.  Wells,  who  have  influenced  popular  opinion  on 
these  subjects  to  an  extent  that  may  well  be  the  envy  of  an 
equal  number  of  trained  and  powerful  preachers.  This  didac- 
tic leaven  is  often  found  in  fiction  which  is  in  no  sense  ecelesias- 


CROSS  CURRENTS  137 

tical  in  its  bias,  and  where  the  author's  art  is  subservient  to 
the  message  he  wishes  to  convey.  He  may  chance  to  be  with- 
out definite  religious  beliefs,  in  which  case  the  theology  per- 
vading his  chapters  will  take  its  characteristics  from  his  own 
consciousness.  This  solution  of  religious  teaching  in  fiction 
has  evidential  value,  since  it  shows  that  men  can  repudiate 
doctrinal  statements  and  yet  retain  a  minimum  of  faith,  which, 
distilled  through  the  medium  of  the  imagination,  testifies  to 
the  rudimentary  theology  that  cleaves  to  conscience  and  life. 
We  may  be  sure  of  the  scorn  and  calumny  of  a  decadent 
group  of  novelists  and  dramatists  who  idealize  licentiousness 
and  blasphemy,  or  invest  the  puppets  of  a  rollicking  Bohemia 
with  fictitious  merits.  Conversely,  they  hold  up  preachers  to 
ridicule  in  that  poor  image  of  their  fond  creation,  the  con- 
ventional Protestant  parson  of  the  stage,  a  character  which 
either  violates  every  ordinary  rule  of  clerical  life  or  is  in 
point  of  manliness  and  brains  the  shadow  of  a  shade,  glim- 
mering on  the  verge  of  downright  idiocy.  An  increasing  num- 
ber of  novels  is  now  written  in  behalf  of  sociological  reforms, 
or  against  what  the  authors  deem  a  fantastic  religious  devo- 
tion which  busies  itself  with  tithing  mint,  anise  and  cummin 
and  forsakes  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.  They  accuse 
the  Church  of  false  claims  and  practices,  or  contrast  her  pres- 
ent humiliation  with  her  past  glory.  In  all  these  things  the 
writers  have  but  to  summon  from  the  recesses  of  their  imagi- 
nation whatever  they  need  for  their  most  fanciful  descrip- 
tions. So  long  as  these  do  not  clash  with  popular  tendencies, 
they  are  widely  read  by  many  who  are  unaware  that  their 
glib  dogmatizing  on  social  and  religious  subjects,  in  terms  that 
are  often  a  mere  name  for  ignorance,  is  a  trap  to  ensnare  the 
unwary.  Nevertheless,  in  nearly  all  fiction — good,  bad  and 
indifferent — there  is  either  a  voluntary  or  an  enforced  tribute 
to  the  broad  distinction  between  righteous  and  unrighteous 
being.  The  great  novelists  recognize  this  distinction  with  an 
impartiality  similar  to  that  of  the  sculptors  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  who  carved  on  the  fronts  of  churches  the  processions 
alike  of  the  saved  and  the  damned.     Certain  characters  are 


138  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

intended  to  engage  onr  emulation,  others  to  provoke  our  an- 
ger and  contempt.  The  ever-active  instincts  of  society  which 
they  embody  distribute  blessings  and  cursings  with  equal 
fidelity,  and  the  ruling  forces  of  Nature  which  they  portray 
are  more  merciless  than  the  most  orthodox  eschatology.  In 
these  higher  forms  of  fiction  one  finds  that  spirituality  which 
pays  homage  to  the  Power  that  reigns  in  justice,  and  the  ele- 
ments which  belong  to  the  universal  moral  sense  of  the  race 
are  asserted  here  as  everywhere.^ 

While  we  are  debtors  to  their  commendable  qualities,  which 
not  infrequently  are  a  precipitate  of  moral  sanity,  there  are 
other  and  malevolent  traits  of  this  type  of  literature  which 
weaken  allegiance  to  religion  and  to  righteousness.  Further, 
the  materialism  that  vulgarizes,  and  the  meretricious  clever- 
ness that  cheapens  the  popular  mind  and  fosters  its  latent  or 
open  dislike  of  spiritual  authority ;  the  irreverence  that  inca- 
pacitates the  soul  for  the  use  of  its  own  divinities,  have  been 
fed  to  repletion  by  a  species  of  literature  for  which  the 
United  States  is  unhappily  notorious.  Multitudes  are  fore- 
armed against  our  mission  by  what  they  read  as  well  as  by 
their  general  manner  of  living.  The  preacher  must  either 
try  to  appease  their  insatiable  craving  for  novelty  and  excite- 
ment, or  spend  his  best  energies  in  arousing  audiences 
shrewdly  eager  about  temporal  things  but  apathetic  toward 
those  which  are  eternal.  They  are  drawn  to  him,  if  at  all, 
by  his  peculiarities  rather  than  by  his  thought  and  forget  his 
wisest  words  while  emphasizing  his  look,  his  tone,  or  his  ges- 
tures. If  he  is  deficient  in  histrionics,  his  theme,  though 
carefully  wrought  out,  is  caviare  to  the  general.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  poverty  of  some  preachers'  utterances  is  likely  to 
be  concealed  from  the  mass  by  the  tricks  of  their  bearing. 
The  efforts  of  a  class  of  ministers  to  entertain  instead  of  to 
instruct  are  a  doleful  confession  of  the  avidity  for  novelty 
which  has  consumed  in  them  the  faculty  for  meditation  and 
worship.  Those  trains  of  reflection  so  essential  to  good  preach- 
ing are  incessantly  broken  by  sensational  practices  which  ham- 

iT.  G.  Selby:     The  Theology  of  Modem  Fiction,  pp.  1-7. 


CROSS  CURRENTS  139 

per  pregnant  views  of  religion.  Like  the  wind-rufifled  pool 
which  cannot  mirror  the  beauty  of  the  sky,  such  practices  pre- 
vent the  sobriety  and  confidence  which  are  the  preacher's 
strength.  The  world  is  too  much  with  him  night  and  day,  and 
far  more  with  him  now  than  when  Wordsworth  protested 
against  its  weakening  contact.  It  leaves  few  openings  for  the 
refinement  of  his  intellect  or  the  education  of  his  heart.  He 
does  not  assimilate  what  he  knows,  nor  does  he  develop  that 
control  over  his  gifts  which  would  impart  to  them  spiritual 
quality  and  adequate  expression.  In  short,  he  also  is  a  vic- 
tim of  the  emphemerality  he  presumably  opposes. 

The  sequence  between  sensuality  and  physical  and  moral 
ruin  is  the  alphabet  of  ethical  teaching.  Rakes  and  libertines 
are  speedily  known  for  what  they  are  and  have  no  reputable 
defenders.  Lovers  of  pleasure  more  than  of  God  come  to  their 
own  place  in  due  time.  And  though  it  is  customary  to  de- 
nounce the  flagrantly  sinful  as  the  worst  of  characters,  and 
the  skeptical  as  composing  the  most  formidable  factor  against 
religion,  I  question  if  these  determinations  are  correct.  The 
havoc  such  people  bring  upon  themselves  and  others  is  inces- 
sant and  irreparable  and  should  be  prevented  in  every  possible 
way.  But  notwithstanding  their  desperate  state,  open  trans- 
gressors are  seldom  without  convictions  about  religion,  which 
agitate  their  souls  and  warn  them  that  the  offense  and  the  pen- 
alty of  evil  living  grow  on  the  same  stem.  Nor  are  they  insen- 
sible to  the  loss  and  the  pain  which  their  daily  experience  at- 
tests. "What  shall  be  said,  however,  of  the  conventionally  re- 
spectable multitudes  who  are  spiritually  torpid?  Solomon 
himself  might  be  baffled  in  trying  to  separate  their  truth  from 
its  associated  falsehood,  their  principle  of  action  from  its  en- 
compassing prejudice.  Lukewarm  allies  are  the  most  danger- 
ous enemies  of  the  Gospel ;  they  blur  every  line  it  draws  and 
confuse  in  the  general  mind  the  paramountcy  of  its  nature 
and  claims.  The  number,  social  standing  and  influence  of 
nominal  Christians  who  are  actual  worldlings  make  these  your 
severest  difficulty.  Not  a  few  preachers  yield  to  their  gravi- 
tation, turn  earthward  with  them  and  substitute  for  the  veri- 


140  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ties  of  the  Divine  Evangel  their  ideas  of  temporal  wisdom  and 
its  benefits.  These  reciprocal  effects  of  the  pew  upon  the  pul- 
pit have  thus  proved  disastrous  to  much  incipient  prophecy, 
which  has  been  stifled  by  the  vitiated  atmosphere  it  breathes. 
Could  this  congealed,  static  mass  of  humanity  be  re-fused  by 
the  fires  of  a  consuming  religious  passion,  melting  it  into  a 
new  penitence  and  intensity  of  devotion,  the  indifference  which 
saps  pulpit  authority  would  largely  disappear.  As  it  is,  the 
truths  of  the  Christian  life  are  faint  and  unreal  in  the  eyes 
of  these  indifferent  multitudes,  and  what  adherence  they  give 
them  is  elusive  and  precarious.  Some  take  refuge  in  philan- 
thropic appendages  of  religion,  exalting  work  beyond  bounds 
because  its  requirements  are  far  easier  than  those  of  faith. 
Others  preserve  a  minimum  of  decorous  respect  for  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Church  and  the  Bible,  and  a  commendable  desire 
that  their  children  shall  be  instructed  in  them.  Individuals, 
decidedly  inclined  to  the  influences  of  rhetoric  and  averse  to 
the  restraints  of  reason,  fall  under  the  momentary  spell  of 
rhapsodists  who  ask  no  sacrificial  efforts  of  them,  but  who  do 
occasionally  set  at  naught  the  Christian  civilization  which  cen- 
turies of  slow  travail  have  accomplished.  Such  people  are  apt 
to  drift  down  the  stream  of  tendency  that  has  the  swiftest 
flow.  They  are  easily  swept  into  spasmodic  action  by  a  gale 
of  windy  talk  from  agitators  who  idealize  revolt  and  have 
neither  the  fixity  of  purpose  nor  the  independency  of  cir- 
cumstances which  a  settled  faith  imparts.  The  grace  that 
has  appeared  unto  all  men  does  not  attract  spirits  which  are 
strained  or  relaxed  by  every  change  in  the  fitful  temperature 
of  the  day's  moods.  The  pity  is  that  large  numbers  of  those 
who  have  forsaken  the  House  of  God  are  content  to  remain  in  a 
state  of  moral  mediocrity  which  recognizes  nothing  better 
than  its  own  self-righteousness  and  is  satisfied  so  long  as  it 
escapes  social  ostracism.  To  such  the  herculean  self-denying 
labors  of  the  missionary  and  the  saint  are  inexplicable  and 
unalluring;  to  be  ascribed,  as  they  suppose,  to  a  peculiar 
genius  for  the  religious  life  which  they  themselves  neither  have 
nor  wish  to  have. 


CROSS  CURRENTS  141 

As  a  rule,  however,  the  amorphous  body  of  modern  indiffer- 
entism  to  religion  remains  true  to  form.  It  is  passive,  not 
active,  ranging  from  a  shadowy  consciousness  of  Christian 
teaching,  which  is  negligible,  to  the  support  of  cults  that  sel- 
dom rise  above  the  level  of  vague  sentimentalism.  Needless  to 
say,  the  views  of  these  typical  groups  are  not  standardized  by 
Scriptural  nor  experimental  religion,  of  which  little  remains 
in  their  minds  except  a  muddy  mixture  of  irrelevancies,  but 
take  the  license  of  form  and  utterance  dictated  by  tempera- 
mental instincts  and  proclivities.  The  aloofness  they  feel 
toward  the  pulpit  and  every  other  agency  of  the  Church  is 
shared  by  large  numbers  of  Hebrews  toward  the  synagogue 
and  by  a  proportionately  lesser  number  of  Roman  Catholics  to- 
ward the  altar  of  their  faith.  It  is  a  universal  condition,  not 
deemed  detrimental  by  those  whom  it  affects  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, indicative  of  their  candor  and  mental  superiority.  I 
am  not  pronouncing  indiscriminate  judgment  upon  these  back- 
sliders, but  simply  indicating  some  of  their  main  tendencies 
which  oppose  genuine  religious  progress.  They  have  lost 
nearly  all  traces  of  the  central  and  cooperative  Christian  mind 
which  from  the  beginning  has  proclaimed  Jesus  as  the  Christ 
of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  men.  What,  it  may  here  be  asked, 
is  the  fate  of  Laodiceans  who  neither  exert  themselves  to  deny 
the  Evangel  nor  to  place  themselves  at  its  disposal ;  by  whom 
fidelity  to  ordinary  interest  is  stressed;  for  whom  the  world 
to  come  is  as  though  it  were  not,  and  its  ministries  ex- 
cluded from  their  souls  ?  The  main  result  of  their  recreancy 
is  the  secularization  of  life,  with  religious  loss  followed  by  de- 
terioration of  moral  fiber.  At  each  remove  such  people  are 
swept  beyond  the  spiritualities  which  enable  the  Christian  to 
rise  to  a  higher  state  of  being.  The  preachers  they  sometimes 
patronize  are  not  likely  to  receive  a  second  hearing  from  them, 
should  their  themes  be  pitched  above  those  maxims  of  worldly 
prudence  which  excite  no  uneasy  thoughts. 

The  heedlessness  of  throngs  bent  on  reprehensible  pursuits, 
the  incontinence  of  flesh-worshipers,  the  inordinance  of  the 
derelict  who  spurn  duty,  and  other  evil  groups  and  habits,  all 


142  AMBASSADOKS  OF  GOD 

which  preachers  and  moralists  combine  to  castigate,  are  not 
always  due  to  debased  parentage  or  corrupted  environment. 
Not  seldom  their  origin  can  be  discovered  in  wills  rebellious 
against  the  divine  law,  in  hearts  which  deliberately  resist  the 
admonitions  of  Holy  Writ  and  the  searchings  of  the  Spirit. 
The  light  which  men  and  women  have  who  thus  act  eventually 
expires,  leaving  them  in  the  shadowy  thoroughfares  where 
darkness  deepens  and  night  draws  on  apace.  There  they 
dwell  ensconced  in  custom,  settled  in  their  "blind  life  within 
the  brain,"  undisturbed  by  the  conflict  that  the  good  fight  of 
faith  necessitates,  and  no  examination,  however  minute,  can 
detect  all  the  numberless  threads  which  make  the  tangled  web 
of  their  captivity.  You  may  crave  for  your  message  what  is 
sympathetic  and  inclusive  as  against  what  is  severe  and  sep- 
arative, but  it  must  be  subject  to  the  distinctions  which  Christ 
Himself  decreed.  These  are  definitely  and  in  some  instances 
finally  condemnatory.  Those  who  build  upon  the  truth  which 
He  taught  build  upon  the  rock,  but  those  who  refuse  to  do  so 
are  ground  to  powder. 

This  solemn  sequence  cannot  be  set  aside  as  a  theological 
anachronism,  since  the  weightiest  facts  in  human  history  have 
always  sustained  it ;  and  though  some  preachers  have  omitted 
it  from  the  list  of  their  ideas,  the  omission  has  no  effect  upon 
its  actual  progress.  It  finds  terrific  instruments  for  its  execu- 
tion in  those  demoralizations  of  peace  which  are  the  preludes 
of  war.  Nor  does  the  moral  organ  in  man  fail  to  warn  him  of 
the  penalties  which  are  the  outcome  of  wrong-doing.  A  not- 
able place  is  given  in  classic  literature  by  ^schylus  to  the 
Eumenides,  who  pursued  the  transgressor  with  hands  of  iron 
and  feet  of  lead ;  to  Nemesis,  daughter  of  Night,  who  tracked 
him  down  with  relentless  vengeance.  Such  were  that  ancient 
world's  dramatic  visualizations  of  retribution  for  sin.  And 
the  modern  world  has  also  its  furies,  undeterred  by  the  fancied 
superiorities  of  the  age,  no  less  fearful  and  resolute  in  pun- 
ishment than  those  depicted  thousands  of  years  ago.  Porget- 
fulness  by  men  of  their  obligations  to  God,  succeeded  as  it  is 
by  f orgetf ulness  of  what  they  owe  to  themselves  and  to  society, 


CEOSS  CURRENTS  143 

has  invariably  involved  them  in  disasters  which  so-called  hu- 
mane theologies  have  not  been  able  to  alleviate.  The  future 
punishment  of  sin  can  be  left  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Eternal 
Father.  But  it  is  significant  that,  when  Jesus  was  unable  to 
make  headway  against  the  religious  indifference,  hypocrisy 
and  rebellion  of  those  who  crucified  Him,  He  not  only  de- 
nounced them  in  scarifying  terms,  but  summoned  them  to  an- 
swer for  their  wilful  betrayals  of  truth  and  righteousness 
before  the  tribunal  of  God. 

II 

Among  the  rivalries  which  compete  with  the  Christian  pul- 
pit to-day  must  be  numbered  those  excursions  of  unlicensed 
imagination  into  the  Unseen  known  as  Theosophy,  Christian 
Science,  Mental  Healing,  New  Thought  and  Spiritualism. 
They  are  largely  the  fruits  of  that  revulsion  against  an  over- 
weening materialism  which  began  to  assert  itself  during  the 
later  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Each  of  these  cults  has 
its  peculiar  tenets,  but  all  unite  to  repudiate  the  once  powerful 
axioms  of  the  Spencerian  philosophy  which  regarded  the  in- 
tuitive and  all  other  psychical  faculties  as  insoluble  enigmas. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  affirmed,  they  are  plain  human  attri- 
butes, capable  of  utilizing  divine  or  ghostly  communications 
for  the  instant  good  of  the  will  and  the  mind.  Unlike  some 
preachers  who  are  saturated  in  procrastination,  the  exponents 
of  these  cults  have  been  quick  to  detect  the  longings  after  the 
invisible  and  the  mysterious,  which  were  discounted  even  in 
the  Church  by  the  prejudice  of  liberal  clergymen  against  the 
supernatural.  Traffickers  in  its  wonders  played  skilfully 
upon  those  longings,  which  mere  reason  cannot  satisfy  nor 
unbelief  quench.  The  student  who  is  pledged  to  uphold 
Christian  spiritualities  does  not  require  to  be  told  that  he 
should  carefully  distinguish  between  these  spiritualities  and 
the  recrudescent  forms  of  modern  cultism.  The  latter  sever- 
ally present  a  maze  of  contradictory  ideas  which  will  try  his 
patience,  because  none  of  them  has  the  happy  reconciliation  of 


144  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

knowledge  with  belief  to  which  they  lay  claim,  and  not  a  few 
call  to  mind  the  saying  that  superstition  is  the  worm  which 
exudes  from  the  grave  of  a  buried  faith. 

Spiritualism  has  made  a  perceptible  advance  since  the  con- 
clusion of  the  late  war,  and  not  a  few  of  the  clergy  have  pro- 
nounced favorably  upon  reported  communications  from  those 
who  have  passed  from  the  life  of  the  flesh.  The  more  severe 
clerical  thinkers  animadvert  against  what  has  been  de- 
scribed as  "the  pitiable  revival  of  necromancy  in  which  deso- 
late hearts  have  sought  spurious  satisfaction."  Doubtless  the 
task  of  imparting  to  multitudes  of  mourners  the  comfort  they 
craved  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  renewed  interest  in  ex- 
istence beyond  death.  If  that  existence  actually  manifests 
an  increased  capacity  for  impinging  in  any  way  upon  the 
present  world,  the  question  at  once  becomes  one  of  evidence 
concerning  which  you  should  preserve  an  open  mind.  A  sin- 
gle hint  of  the  survival  of  the  soul  found  in  all  the  unsavory 
methods  of  the  clairvoyants,  or  one  ray  of  light  in  the  mass  of 
repugnant  spiritualistic  phenomena,  well  deserves  scrutinizing 
examination.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn,  the  descrip- 
tions of  life  after  death  by  those  who  are  said  to  have  broken 
the  silence  of  the  grave  are  a  melancholy  disappointment  when 
contrasted  with  the  exultant  glories  of  the  Christian  Revela- 
tion. In  any  case,  it  is  more  requisite  now  than  ever  that  you 
should  herald  the  truth  that  Jesus  brought  life  and  immortal- 
ity to  light  in  the  Gospel. 

Katharine  Tynan  dwells  on  the  morbidness  of  cultured  peo- 
ple who  have  abandoned  Christianity,  and  remarks  that  she 
has  seen  the  "emancipated"  daughter  of  a  bishop  swoon  be- 
cause she  caught  sight  of  the  new  moon  through  glass.^  Her 
observation  of  the  underworld  of  faith  is  corroborated  by  other 
writers  who  describe  similar  instances.  Yet  that  underworld 
cannot  be  lightly  dismissed,  since  there  is  much  genuine  faith 
centered  in  it,  and  though  you  pour  the  acid  of  critical  scorn 
upon  its  phantasies  that  does  not  destroy  them.  For  not- 
withstanding their  rejection  of  logic,  of  rationality  and  his- 

3  Ticenty-Five  Tears:  Reminiscences,  p.  287. 


CROSS  CURRENTS  145 

toric  restraint,  these  various  cults  have  either  an  idealistic  side 
or  an  element  of  reality  which  postpones  their  ultimate  dis- 
missal. Meanwhile  their  priests  and  priestesses  are  idolized 
by  their  votaries  and  serenely  shelter  themselves  behind  that 
loyalty.  Their  teachings  are  often  obscure  to  the  last  degree, 
— incantations  and  not  arguments;  effusions  the  meanings  of 
which  are  lost  in  rhetorical  fog.  Their  efforts  to  erect  these 
rhapsodies  into  an  arcana  of  scientific  certitude  are  not  to  be 
seriously  entertained.  The  extraordinary  lure  they  have  for 
a  type  of  mind  which  is  prodigal  of  marvels  and  disdainful  of 
facts  is  due  to  their  ambiguous  utterances  about  hidden  things 
and  to  that  dabbling  in  the  pseudo-miraculous  which  has  never 
advantaged  genuine  religion.  This  passing  vogue  of  esoteric 
cults  has  its  lessons  for  us  who  inherit  the  great  realities  of 
Revelation  and  preach  them  to  others.  The  Hebrew  prophet 
protested  not  only  against  soothsayers  and  pretenders,  but 
against  the  ambassadors  of  God  who  stood  not  in  His  coun- 
sel, or  they  would  have  caused  His  people  to  hear  His  word 
and  to  have  "turned  them  from  their  evil  way,  and  from  the 
evil  of  their  doings."  ^ 

If  the  Church  would  save  our  generation  from  the  folly  and 
loss  of  false  religious  teaching,  which  more  often  than  not  is 
the  more  dangerous  because  of  the  half  truths  it  embodies,  she 
must  herself  repair  to  timely  instruction  in  order  to  overcome 
error  and  fanaticism  by  a  faith  luminous  with  the  light  divine. 
The  necessity  ever  remains  that  the  mind  of  the  Church  shall 
be  under  the  control  of  the  Spirit  "Whom  Jesus  Himself  prom- 
ised for  her  enduement;  for  her  thoughts,  words  and  deeds 
are  intended  to  convey  not  only  the  Divine  Law,  but  the  Di- 
vine Mind.  And  if  this  Mind  is  to  prevail.  Christians  must 
steadfastly  nurture  a  type  of  faith  far  stronger  in  its  possi- 
bilities than  is  common  at  present.  Sir  Rabindranath  Ta- 
gore  's  contrast  of  the  opulence  of  the  East  with  the  poverty  of 
the  West  in  phenomena  of  the  spirit  serves  to  remind  us  at  this 
point  of  the  holy  stillness  in  which  the  Paraclete  imparts  to 
earnest  and  prophetic  men  the  secret  of  their  sway.     The  gifts 

s  Jeremiah  xxiii :  22. 


146  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

He  bestows,  the  counsels  He  inspires,  the  words  He  authorizes 
are  vital  for  our  mission.  They  have  an  unparalleled  record 
in  the  planting,  training  and  progress  of  the  Church,  and  are 
the  only  certain  guarantees  of  her  further  growth  and  final 
triumph. 

Other  sinister  effects  of  the  lack  of  sound  Scriptural  teach- 
ing are  seen  in  the  low  ethical  standards  of  many  professed 
Christians  who  persistently  view  their  creed  as  a  thaumaturgy 
rather  than  a  method  of  goodness.  Mormonism  is  the  fore- 
most modern  example  of  this  evil;  the  outstanding  instance 
of  lawless  religious  emotionalism.  It  reveals  an  astonish- 
ing development  from  those  atavistic  causes  which  operate 
most  freely  in  pioneer  territories  drenched  with  religious 
primitivism  and  excitement,  while  utterly  oblivious  of  the 
intellectual  grandeur  and  moral  dignity  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  Foul  tyrannies  lurk  beneath  sanctimonious  proposi- 
tions which  ensnare  those  who,  once  they  have  drawn  the 
poisonous  draught,  must  needs  drink  it.  Beware  of  uncom- 
mon experiences  which  controvert  the  universal  witness  of  the 
Church;  of  revivalistic  outbursts  which  raise  the  ghosts  of 
heresies  as  old  as  religion ;  of  the  perversities  of  bibliolators 
who  quote  the  Scriptures  to  suit  their  notions.  Even  if  the 
Bible  were  in  every  particular  an  infallible  revelation,  it  is 
manipulated  in  such  cases  by  notoriouslj'  fallible  custodians 
whose  use  of  it  is  unmistakable  proof  of  the  exasperating  risks 
of  ultra-orthodoxy.  Their  labors  have  too  often  resulted  in 
error  and  schism  to  command  our  respect  and  confidence. 
The  need  of  a  spiritualized  Faith,  of  an  authoritative  creed, 
of  an  ethical  superiority,  which  guarantee  themselves,  cannot 
be  met  by  hortatory  appeals.  These  appeals  must  themselves 
be  based  upon  fundamental  moral  and  spiritual  doctrine  de- 
rived from  the  principles  and  ideals  of  the  New  Testament,  if 
they  are  to  serve  the  purpose  of  the  Church.  Those  who  ig- 
nore this  process  have  much  to  say  in  which  we  can  acquiesce, 
but  some  things  they  aver  are  not  corroborated  by  the  facts 
which  divide  and  compound  life's  varied  phases.  It  would 
be  an  interesting  experiment  to  apply  the  ethic  of  the  Gos- 


CROSS  CURRENTS  147 

pel  to  those  churches  which  hitherto  have  minimized  it  in 
behalf  of  periodical  waves  of  revivalistic  passion.* 

Religious  negativism,  not  less  than  religious  fanaticism  and 
reactionary  piety,  is  another  tendency  of  the  times  which  mili- 
tates against  preaching.  Many  people  of  correct  tastes,  moral 
refinement  and  a  generous  appreciation  for  the  best  elements 
of  existence  are  separated  by  it  from  the  Church  which  can 
ill  afford  their  loss.  We  constantly  hear  of  vivid,  humane, 
gracious  and  commanding  personalities  who  have  sought 
every  source  of  spiritual  enlightenment  except  the  true  one. 
Nothing  more  sadly  significant  for  the  thoughtful  preacher 
appears  in  literature  than  the  admissions  of  accomplished 
and  reflective  minds  which  have  reluctantly  turned  away 
from  Christianity.  One  of  the  latest  and  most  notable  of 
these  recessions  was  that  of  Henrj'-  Adams,  son  of  the  great 
ambassador  of  the  United  States  to  the  Court  of  St.  James 
during  the  critical  years  of  our  Civil  War.  He  speaks  of  the 
problem  of  life  as  classic  in  the  simplicity  of  its  appearance  to 
his  youthful  heart.  Politics  offered  no  difficulties  which  could 
not  be  overcome  while  the  moral  law  was  their  surety.  Social 
perfection  was  inevitable,  since  human  nature  traveled  stead- 
ily toward  that  goal.  The  suffrage,  common  schools  and  the 
press  were  the  three  instrumentalities  of  the  best  possible  civ- 
ilization. These  matters  this  worthy  scion  of  one  of  New 
England 's  patrician  families  was  forbidden  to  question.  Edu- 
cation was  divine,  the  Socratic  doctrine  that  knowledge  is  vir- 
tue still  held  good  and  would  presently  be  the  universal  rem- 
edy. The  clergymen  who  dominated  the  society  he  knew  were 
never  surpassed,  as  he  supposed,  in  virtue  of  life  and  charac- 
ter. They  insisted  on  no  dogma  beyond  those  already  named, 
which,  in  truth,  were  at  bottom  dogmatic  enough  and  carried 
the  creed  of  liberalism  to  its  ultimate  conclusions.  These  led, 
in  Adams'  case,  first  to  his  rejection  of  supernatural  religion 
and  then  to  incurable  doubt.  He  read  his  Bible,  attended  the 
Unitarian  Church  on  the  Lord's  Day  and  believed  in  a  mild, 
innocuous  Theism.     But  neither  to  him  nor  to  his  brothers 

^Cf.     Oscar  L.  Joseph:     Essentiala  of  EvwngeUam,  p.  103  S. 


148  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

and  sisters  was  their  religion  ever  made  real;  even  the  easy 
yoke  of  their  household  faith  was  thrown  off  at  the  earliest  op- 
portunity, and  they  never  afterwards  entered  a  church.  The 
grand  instinct  for  worship  had  vanished  and  could  not  be  re- 
covered, although  this  mourner  over  its  absence  ransacked 
heaven  and  earth  to  find  it.  He  wondered  why  so  powerful  an 
emotion  should  be  obliterated,  and  was  bewildered  by  the  fact 
that  the  most  intelligent  society  in  the  land,  led  by  the  most 
learned  clergy,  in  the  most  moral  conditions  he  ever  knew, 
should  have  been  so  utterly  indifferent  to  the  sublime  themes 
which  have  agitated  human  consciousness  from  its  birth.  The 
explanation  is  that  the  propensity  for  their  stultification  had 
been  nurtured  to  the  utmost  by  a  persistent  spirit  of  negativ- 
ism, and  the  outcome  was  a  great  nature  mutilated  by  the  un- 
welcome skepticism  which,  as  he  confessed,  laid  no  old  specters 
but  raised  many  new  ones.^ 

It  is  needless  to  comment  at  length  on  these  candid  disclos- 
ures by  one  whose  secluded  habit  intensified  his  pessimism. 
Nor  do  I  attempt  to  estimate  how  much  a  discreet  accommo- 
dation of  his  individuality  to  surrounding  circumstances  would 
have  saved  Mr.  Adams  from  the  wearying  pursuits  he  succes- 
sively discarded.  But  it  is  a  fair  inference  that  had  he  known 
God  as  another  illustrious  but  persecuted  publicist  and  patriot, 
Mazzini,  knew  Him ;  had  he  been  taught  from  the  first  that  re- 
ligion was  the  life  of  Christ  in  the  souls  of  men  and  that  they 
who  live  in  Him  find  the  saving  grace  of  all  sects  and  creeds, 
the  fount  of  social  sympathy  and  betterment,  Adams  might 
have  transferred  his  remarkable  gifts  to  ways  of  unusual  help- 
fulness. Be  this  as  it  may,  the  learning  he  acquired  was  no 
restorative  for  his  malady,  albeit  its  moral  tonic  kept  him  fas- 
tidiously free  from  any  dereliction  of  conduct.  What  knowl- 
edge could  not  do  for  him,  it  could  not  do  for  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  which  in  matters  of  faith  he  belonged.  In  that  age 
the  intellectuals  became  the  prey  of  infidelity ;  the  clericals,  of 
indifference;  the  profane,  of  license  and  blasphemy;  and  the 
proletariat,  of  debauchery  and  lawlessness.     For  as  it  has  been 

6  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams,  pp.  34-37. 


CROSS  CURRENTS  149 

observed,  when  good  sense,  even  the  best  good  sense,  sets  to 
work  with  the  material  of  human  nature  and  of  Divine  Reve- 
lation to  construct  its  own  religion,  the  utmost  it  can  achieve 
is  an  ethical  code  for  private  observance,  and  there  its  ability 
will  end.  The  miracle  of  Divine  renewal  will  embarrass  it; 
and  its  failure,  which  is  repeated  on  a  large  scale  in  our  own 
time,  will  demonstrate  that  some  higher  organon  is  necessary 
for  the  establishment  of  a  transforming,  purifying  faith.  Pri- 
vate and  public  life  can  only  be  permanently  upraised  and 
blessed  by  the  renewal  of  its  consciousness  of  God.  This  we 
know,  if  we  know  anything  at  all,  and  this  we  must  teach  the 
more  carefully  if  we  believe  that  the  whole  structure  of  civil- 
ization, and  of  the  Church  and  Kingdom  of  Christ,  is  entirely 
dependent  upon  its  acceptance.  The  most  advanced  ideas  of 
radical  theorists  have  provided  no  practical  substitute  for  the 
Evangel  of  which  Christ  is  the  personal  center. 

Ill 

There  remain  several  other  sources  of  difficulty  confronting 
the  ministry  of  which  it  is  well  that  we  should  take  note ;  viz., 
the  assertive  individualism  of  the  time  with  its  strong  dislike 
of  authority,  the  non-existence  among  multitudes  of  any 
Church-consciousness,  and  the  sectarian  divisions  of  Protes- 
tantism. "Whatever  else  the  people  lack  to-day  they  are  amply 
supplied  with  information  as  to  their  rights,  while  those  who 
counsel  them  to  interpret  those  rights  wisely  are  far  from  re- 
ceiving the  attention  they  justly  deserve.  Advice  that  savors 
of  restraint  is  not  widely  welcomed  at  present.  And  the  pre- 
vailing dislike  of  restriction  of  any  kind  is  the  prologue  that 
anticipates  the  opening  of  a  momentous  drama  in  the  history 
of  mankind  for  which  the  stage  is  even  now  being  set.  The 
shadows  of  its  realities  are  projected  upon  the  curtain  of  the 
near  future,  in  which  changes  of  enduring  importance  are 
about  to  occur.  In  politics,  anarchism  has  capped  the  climax ; 
in  philosophy,  practicality  asserts  itself  as  the  touchstone  of 
truth;  in  education,  knowledge  is  frequently  nothing  more 


150  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

than  the  tool  of  material  gain ;  in  religion,  denials  and  coun- 
ter denials  have  a  large  vogue.  Specialism  has  supplanted 
proportion  in  the  methods  of  learning,  and  those  who  practice 
it  are  sometimes  no  safer  guides  than  the  humanists  who  re- 
pudiate the  accepted  standards  of  art  and  literature.  States- 
men confess  that  situations  confront  them  for  which  there  are 
no  precedents.  The  general  behavior  of  society  reveals  its  in- 
ward bewilderment  concerning  even  fundamentals.  The  sal- 
vation of  the  social  order  depends  upon  its  solidarity,  inter- 
communion and  harmony ;  but  how  can  these  be  secured  while 
an  extraordinary  development  of  fragmentary  interests,  sects, 
groups,  classes  and  their  antagonisms  hold  the  field  ?  The  mil- 
itant discontent  which  protests  against  every  kind  of  rule,  and 
clouds  the  vital  connection  between  freedom  and  law,  fer- 
mented in  sporadic  and  perplexed  ways  below  the  surface  of 
pre-war  life.  Upon  these  divided  elements  the  shock  of  the 
European  conflict  fell  to  imbue  them  with  new  abstract  ideas 
and  to  bring  new  leaders  to  the  front.  Such  events  may  tend 
to  the  re-adaptation  of  your  message  but  surely  they  have  in- 
tensified the  need  of  it.  For  the  war  has  left  us  as  it  found 
us  in  many  essentials,  and  we  must  make  it  our  business  to  pre- 
vent the  further  sway  of  those  selfish  ambitions,  jealousies  and 
fears  which  were  the  causes  of  past  tragedies.  If  the  tran- 
quillity of  Christendom  is  to  rest  upon  something  more  stable 
than  an  inertia  like  that  of  fierce  beasts  of  the  jungle  while 
they  retire  untamed  to  lick  their  wounds,  nations  will  have  to 
change  hearts  as  well  as  constitutions  and  frontiers.  The 
ruin  we  survey  has  one  of  its  malignant  sources  in  a  viru- 
lent egoism  always  disastrous  to  religious  and  social  welfare. 
Attempts  to  reconcile  the  good  of  the  individual  with  that  of 
the  whole  are  yet  in  the  predictive  stage  and  can  only  promise 
that,  after  further  growth,  the  primitive  selfishness  of  man  will 
make  way  for  universal  fraternity  and  right.  In  the  mean- 
time, a  reconstruction  far  more  revolutionary  than  reformers 
had  anticipated  threatens  the  present  order,  which  is  entering 
upon  an  age  of  far-reaching  experiments,  the  nature  of  which 
Time  alone  can  decide.     The  efforts  of  systems  of  collectivism 


CROSS  CURRENTS  151 

and  of  democratic  states  to  mitigate  the  abuses  of  unrestrained 
competition  and  to  protect  the  proletariat  from  exploitation 
are  countered  by  the  dread  of  paternalism.  Ethical  thinkers 
disavow  the  predominance  of  self  and  plead  for  its  renuncia- 
tion in  behalf  of  communal  welfare  as  the  essence  of  morality. 
These  approximations  toward  common  rights  are  known  as  jus- 
tice, a  word  which  is  used  by  many  who  seem  unaware  that  it  is 
one  of  the  names  of  Deity.  And  unless  the  authoritative  Dic- 
tator can  be  found  whose  word  is  final  and  who  can  satisfy 
the  questionings  which  concern  not  the  power  that  enforces 
control  so  much  as  the  right  by  which  that  power  is  exercised, 
the  desired  settlement  will  be  indefinitely  postponed.  Herein 
lies  the  opportunity  of  the  pulpit  to  give  the  age  the  guidance 
it  needs,  for  every  question  that  engages  serious  thought  and 
divides  men  is  in  essence  spiritual  and  can  be  permanently  set- 
tled only  by  spiritual  wisdom.  The  interpretation  of  life  in 
spiritual  terms  is  the  one  solid  hope  for  the  world's  future  and 
the  only  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  Christian  ministry. 

Many  are  asking  why  Protestantism  cannot  display  the  su- 
perior wit  which  solves  the  standing  riddle  of  freedom  with 
obedience.  Here  you  contend  with  the  opinion,  driven  deep 
by  current  discussion,  that  the  authority  of  the  Church  serves 
no  other  purpose  than  to  harbor  absurdities,  pretensions  and 
bigotries,  which  is  as  far  from  the  truth  as  the  assertion  that 
it  has  always  been  a  righteous  regimen.  Both  views  are  ad- 
verse to  pulpit  influence  and  explain  the  exaggerations  which 
on  either  side  of  the  controversy  voice  unfortunate  prejudice. 
It  is  a  decided  gain  when  sober  and  open-minded  men  hesitate 
before  dogmatic  assertions,  examine  the  reasons  for  their 
ecclesiastical  beliefs  and  make  sure  that  they  correspond 
with  the  evidences  adduced  in  their  behalf.  There  should  be 
no  schism  between  authority  and  freedom,  which  are  comple- 
mentary when  accurately  defined  and  understood.  Society 
implies  an  order  which  begins  and  ends  with  liberty,  "passing 
from  the  simplicity  of  that  freedom  which  obeys  lawful  author- 
ity to  the  freedom  of  mastery  to  which  such  obedience  leads." ' 

•  Principal  W-  T.  Davison:     The  Chief  Comer-Stone,  p.  14. 


152  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Law  makes  for  liberty  when  it  is  righteous  law,  and  it  is  a 
truism  to  say  that  perfect  obedience  to  a  perfect  law  would 
mean  perfect  liberty.  Between  these  polarities  of  authority 
and  freedom  men  find  through  their  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
God  that  perfect  freedom  to  which  His  service  leads.  There 
are  many  prostitutions  of  power  but  they  can  never  be  author- 
ity because  such  perversions  are  not  rightful  power  but  tyran- 
nies; and  of  all  tyrannies  those  which  have  corrupted  ideal- 
ism are  the  most  cruel  and  pernicious.  Yet  one  often  meas- 
ures the  heights  from  the  depths,  and  the  validity  of  legiti- 
mate authority  is  seen  in  the  contrast  presented  by  its  de- 
graded imitations  which  are  now  being  used  for  the  strangling 
of  civilization.  As  ambassadors  of  God  we  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned, however,  with  efforts  to  thrust  down  the  soul  to  a 
subsidiary  level,  and  thus  deprive  it  of  its  supremacy  in  crea- 
tion, or  deny  it  even  the  importunities  of  its  own  life.  Such 
efforts,  by  whomsoever  made,  recoil  upon  their  makers,  but 
the  danger  of  the  recoil  is  not  confined  to  them.  It  is  often 
most  active  in  those  violent  extremes  where  ethical  and  reli- 
gious interests  escape  all  jurisdiction  and  assume  the  fantastic 
forms  that  betray  every  sort  of  progress.  The  severance  of 
Church  and  state,  the  implication  that  the  Church  is  subordi- 
nate to  the  state,  the  differentiation  between  the  loyalty  you 
owe  the  Church  and  that  which  you  owe  the  state,  are  further 
and  relevant  issues  of  this  absorbing  theme.  And  what  is  to 
be  the  future  relation  of  Protestant  Christianity  to  the  state 
is  by  no  means  clearly  defined  at  this  time. 

Not  without  justice  is  the  Church  admonished  that  she  must 
first  set  her  own  house  in  order  before  she  can  reasonably  ex- 
pect to  bring  harmony  and  peace  to  a  divided  world.  Her 
foes  mock  at  her  divisions,  her  truest  friends  deeply  lament 
them;  for  it  goes  without  saying  that  our  divisions  have  be- 
come, whatever  they  may  have  been  in  the  past,  major  sources 
of  weakness.  This  is  not  to  deny  the  efficacy  of  many  differ- 
ing forms  of  Church  polity  which  have  embodied  in  varying 
degrees  the  wisdom  which  comes  from  above  and  have  re- 
flected not  only  the  idiosyncrasies  but  also  the  just  demands 


CROSS  CURRENTS  153 

of  men.  Yet  when  we  attempt  to  separate  the  living  tissues 
of  their  truth  from  the  foreign  substance  of  their  error,  do  we 
not  often  find  them  so  interlaced  that  to  remove  the  one  im- 
perils the  other?  For  if  it  be  true  that  Catholicism  has  lin- 
gered far  too  long  over  traditional  expressions  of  Christian- 
ity, it  is  equally  true  that  Protestantism  has  been  somewhat 
oblivious  of  their  practical  values.  The  unhistoric  temper 
which  prompts  sectarians  to  regard  the  period  between  the 
Apostolic  Age  and  that  of  Luther  as  "a  night  of  unclean 
things"  is  slowly  passing.  It  has  kept  us  from  sympathet- 
ically noting  the  affinities  which  the  different  developments 
of  Christianity  have  for  one  another.  The  procession  of  the 
ages  begets  in  those  who  watch  its  wondrous  unfoldings  the 
virtue  of  tolerance ;  it  cultivates  the  historic  perspective  which 
is  the  preacher's  criterion,  without  which  he  magnifies  the  triv- 
ial, slights  the  important  and  inflames  the  antagonistic.  It 
indicates  that  this  gigantic  problem  of  running  order  through 
chaos,  discipline  through  freedom,  unity  through  multiplicity, 
has  always  been,  and  perhaps  always  will  be,  the  test  of  the 
Divine  Society;  the  moral  not  alone  of  religion  but  of  every 
undertaking  and  economy  of  life.  The  Puritanism  to  which 
we  are  devoted,  excellent  as  it  was  in  protest,  notable  as  the  ar- 
chitect of  free  communities,  must  find  the  goal  for  its  freedom 
not  in  separatism  but  in  unification.  The  corrective  witness  of 
the  Church  as  a  whole  cannot  be  set  aside  by  rampant  indi- 
vidualism or  negative  sectarianism.  Doubtless  the  indwelling 
Spirit  has  kept  branches  and  forms  from  petrifaction,  and  it  is 
consolatory  to  know  that  the  life  which  the  Church  Universal 
receives  from  her  Lord  vitalizes  her  divisions  according  to  the 
measure  of  their  faith  and  obedience.  But  this  is  not  suf- 
ficient ;  we  must  discern  in  the  Church  the  entire  congregation 
of  souls  re-born  and  gathered  out  of  every  nation,  fused  into 
a  spiritual  homogeneity,  broadly  and  securely  founded  upon 
Christ's  Personality  and  reign,  and  work  and  pray  for  the 
healing  of  schism.  An  informed  consciousness  of  the  real 
catholicity  of  the  Church  sees  in  her  past,  present  and  future 
the  outworking  of  one  Divine  plan,  slowly  emergent  from 


154  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

beneath  the  wear  and  waste  of  purely  human  agencies ;  a  con- 
sciousness that  esteems  her  capable  of  still  higher  unity,  of  a 
more  universal  loyalty,  of  a  fuller  sense  of  religious  obliga- 
tion and  social  duty. 

We  cannot  forever  be  disputing  the  exact  origin  of  the 
streams  at  which  souls  quench  their  spiritual  thirst.  It  is  our 
chief  duty  to  replenish  those  streams  that  they  may  irrigate 
larger  areas.  And  one  crying  necessity  of  the  Reformed  Faith 
is  a  doctrine  of  the  Church  sufficiently  broad  and  coherent 
to  embody  our  love  and  aspiration  for  her  and  to  secure  the 
loyalty  of  many  who  owe  her  an  allegiance  they  do  not  ren- 
der. This  would  release  us  from  the  staggering  load  of 
claims.  High  or  Low,  which  burden  sacred  truth  and  defeat 
catholicity.  It  would  give  us  a  working  basis  from  which  to 
attack  the  iniquities  that  have  organized  while  churchmen 
have  wrangled.  It  would  neutralize  the  sharpness  of  the  con- 
troversial spirit  by  the  forbearance  of  the  fraternal  spirit.  It 
would  bid  us  probe  to  the  bottom  the  wounds  of  the  Body  of 
Christ  and  rid  them  of  their  virus  in  the  conviction  that  they 
are  curable.  The  world,  which  refuses  to  be  either  entirely 
Protestantized  or  entirely  Romanized,  does  not  require  Chris- 
tians to  enter  upon  a  hollow  and  transient  truce,  but  to  arrive 
at  a  just  and  settled  peace.  We  know  that  the  obstacles  ap- 
pear insuperable  and  gather  strength  from  immemorial 
sources.  However  complete  our  investigations  may  be,  they 
are  liable  to  omit  or  to  misconstrue  the  motives  and  interests 
which  have  given  birth  to  sects  and  creeds.  Their  relative 
merits,  defects  and  environments  entail  a  survey  whose  dimen- 
sions tax  the  most  extensive  scholarship.  Nor  do  we  for  a 
moment  hold  that  the  reckless  censure  which  some  cast  upon 
them  accomplishes  any  good.  Their  historic  services  to  the 
Faith  should  protect  them  against  such  railing,  and  the  ob- 
servance of  their  alignments  should  chasten  personal  predilec- 
tion and  stimulate  magnanimity.  Sectarianism  has,  neverthe- 
less, seen  its  meridian ;  and  if  it  is  true  that  nations  must  agree 
or  perish,  it  is  equally  true  that  the  religious  denominations 
which  have  been  a  blessing  to  many  peoples  must  do  likewise 


CROSS  CURRENTS  155 

or  incur  a  similar  fate.  A  great  schism  is  said  to  exist  in 
Chinese  Lamaism:  heterodox  factions  turn  their  praying 
wheels  from  left  to  right,  while  the  orthodox  insist  upon  the 
contrary  motion,  from  right  to  left.  The  points  dividing  Pro- 
testant sects  are  in  some  instances  hardly  more  vital.  Of 
course  our  fears  or  hopes  are  subject  to  the  undetermined  val- 
ues of  twentieth  century  thought,  but  a  forecast  for  the  Church 
compels  the  conclusion  that  her  prosperity  depends  upon  her 
encouragement  of  the  growing  desire  for  Christian  unity. 
Should  this  be  summarily  discountenanced  and  the  Church  re- 
fuse to  deal  candidly  with  her  own  past  and  present  for  the 
sake  of  her  future,  the  Lord  of  all  ages  may  once  more  assert 
His  supremacy  in  surprising  ways.  The  judgment  which 
doomed  states  that  nursed  disruption  will  not  spare  churches 
that  are  heedless  of  the  signs  of  the  times. 

Attach  the  freedom  of  prophecy  which  Protestantism  has 
bestowed  on  you  to  the  determination  that  the  Church  must 
become,  inwardly  and  outwardly,  what  her  glorified  Head  in- 
tended her  to  be.  Dwell  upon  the  constructive  truths  and 
forces  which  consolidate  Christianity.  Under  no  considera- 
tion turn  aside  from  this  course,  nor  allow  the  contradictions 
of  either  saints  or  sinners  to  induce  you  to  modify  the  Divine 
authority  of  the  Church  as  the  guardian  of  the  Gospel.  The 
prominence  given  to  tribal  cults  and  covenants  has  often  been 
subversive  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ.  Instruct  your 
congregations,  therefore,  to  look  with  generous  hope  upon  the 
affairs  of  the  "one  flock"  to  which  He  referred, — the  flock, 
not  the  fold, — in  which  He  will  yet  gather  all  believers.  Here 
there  is  no  basis  for  the  idea  on  which  some  are  forever  harp- 
ing, that  other  Christian  communions  should  be  absorbed  into 
their  own;  but  there  is  a  Divine  authorization  of  "the  unity 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace"  and  of  the  larger  organic 
growth  through  which  it  will  finally  be  expressed.  Separative 
factors  have  had  a  period  of  unrestrained  praise  in  which  his- 
toric accuracy  has  frequently  been  sacrificed  to  eulogy,  but 
at  the  summit  of  their  influence  they  did  not  capture  the 
world  to  which  they  were  so  sedulously  presented.    National- 


156  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ism  has  proved  sufficiently  strong  to  crush  an  artificial  over- 
balance of  destructive  imperialism;  nevertheless,  far-visioned 
men  and  women  do  not  feel  that  nationalism  is  the  ultimate 
goal  of  Christian  civilization.  In  like  manner,  Protestantism 
has  redressed  ancient  wrongs  in  the  Church,  colonized  states, 
kept  faith  with  intellectual  integrity,  and  with  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty.  But  it  must  preserve  the  great  traditions 
that  sanction  the  supremacy  of  the  Gospel,  and  not  permit  the 
machinations  of  political  craft  or  ecclesiastical  pride  to  hinder 
its  mission.  Its  true  function  is  not  sectarian,  nor  national, 
nor  even  international,  but  supernational,  as  every  advocate  of 
Christ  in  non-Christian  lands  can  testify.  In  that  consecra- 
tion to  spiritual  things,  which  speaks  with  the  power  of  the 
world  to  come,  Protestantism  will  find  its  elevation  and 
strength  for  every  function  it  exercises  in  the  world  that 
now  is. 

The  Church  has  her  ultimate  phase  in  the  supreme  Ideal 
which  Jesus  called  His  Kingdom,  and  many  who  speak  grudg- 
ingly of  the  former  use  generous  terms  concerning  the  latter. 
This  difference  of  reference  is  not  difficult  to  understand,  if 
you  remember  that  the  desire  for  doctrinal  definitions  and 
exclusions,  which  has  raged  with  uncontrollable  force  for  the 
last  four  hundred  years,  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  divisions 
already  mentioned.  Roman,  Anglican,  Lutheran,  Calvinistic 
and  Arminian  theologians  agreed  on  little  except  that  there 
could  be  no  such  thing  as  an  open  question  among  Christian 
men.  But  non-disputants  who  felt  that  in  the  presence  of 
the  epic  factors  of  the  Divine  economy  these  refinements  and 
qualifications  shrank  in  value  and  meaning,  naturally  took 
refuge  in  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom,  and  asserted  with  truth 
that  it  was  unthinkable  for  any  part  of  it  to  be  fenced  off  from 
a  true  disciple  of  Christ.  The  quarrels  of  the  dogmatists, 
which  had  the  power  of  absorbing  their  minds  and  rousing  re- 
ligious and  political  antipathies,  seem  short-lived  and  unim- 
portant when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  eternal  cosmos  which 
is  being  built  up  by  every  Christ-like  interest  of  mankind. 
Carry  your  thought  onward  from  the  scenes  of  their  historic 


CROSS  CURRENTS  157 

separatisms  into  the  invisible  realm  where  the  great  teachers 
who  once  reproached  one  another  now  dwell  together  in  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  saints  in  light.  In  that  Kingdom  they  rest  in 
one  communion,  and  there  vexations  and  tumults  are  at  an 
end.  Its  all-inclusive  hospitality  has  made  it  a  grateful  con- 
ception for  enlightened  spirits,  who  grew  weary  of  barren 
controversies  and  urged  that  they  brought  into  prominence 
matters  which  were  as  dust  in  the  balances  when  compared 
with  the  truths  upon  which  all  Christians  are  agreed.  In 
proportion  to  the  strength  of  your  conviction  that  the  Church 
is  the  forerunner  of  the  Kingdom  will  the  triumph  of  both  be 
hastened.  Yet  it  is  not  wise  for  the  preacher  to  spread  his 
personal  efforts  too  profusely.  For  the  Kingdom  is  so  vast 
and  complex  a  matter  as  to  be  the  charge  of  God  Himself. 
He  alone  can  direct  the  movements  of  the  whole  of  life  and 
of  the  enterprises  into  which  life  pours  its  energies.  The  min- 
ister who  best  serves  the  Church  he  knows  best  serves  the 
Kingdom  he  cannot  know  in  its  reach  and  fullness,  and  cer- 
tainly no  ambassador  of  Christ  should  attempt  to  disrupt 
their  living  union. 

What  can  be  said  of  the  contribution  of  symbolism  to  that 
union?  The  pulpit  has  a  premier  place  in  Evangelical  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  minatory  opinions  uttered  against  it  have 
moved  some  of  its  defenders  to  identify  the  fact  of  preaching 
with  a  sacramental  efficacy  which  has  to  be  sustained  by  the 
man  rather  than  the  office.  It  was  not  intended  that  the  life 
of  the  Church  should  find  its  only  outlet  in  sacred  discourse, 
nor  that  her  powers  as  an  agent  of  transmission  should  be  ex- 
pended in  any  single  method.  The  symbolism  which  hallows 
and  adorns  worship  is  welcome  to  many  whose  familiarity  with 
the  pulpit  has  not  increased  its  influence  over  them.  This  is 
debatable  ground;  yet  it  is  firm  enough  to  sustain  the  argu- 
ment for  the  mystical  blending  of  things  seen  and  unseen  in 
the  Christian  system.  The  awful  Being  raised  above  the 
sphere  of  sense  is  not  beyond  the  reach  of  sensory  perceptions. 
On  the  contrary,  the  Incarnation  has  pierced  the  veil,  and 
every  appropriation  of  religious  life  through  the  Sacraments 


158  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

testifies  to  the  invisible  sources  of  grace  which  they  embody 
for  a  recipient  faith.  At  the  entrance  gate  of  the  Christian 
sanctuary  is  the  rite  of  Baptism ;  upon  its  altar  the  Eucharis- 
tic  Feast  is  spread.  The  great  majority  of  Christ's  followers 
receive  from  these  ordinances  and  from  the  interpretations 
placed  upon  them  what  spiritual  nurture  they  have.  No  re- 
view of  modern  tendencies  which  affect  preaching  and  Church 
unity  is  complete  that  does  not  reckon  with  sacerdotal  doctrine. 
It  is  the  strength  of  the  traditional  churches,  and  they  will 
more  readily  admit  discussion  of  any  other  of  their  particular 
tenets  than  of  that  one.  The  democracy  of  belief  and  practice 
to  which  Protestantism,  and  specifically  Puritanism,  invited 
the  Church  at  large  has  not  been  as  acceptable  as  our  fathers 
supposed  it  would  be.  The  most  stubborn  obstacle  to  its  ac- 
ceptance is  High  Sacramentarianism,  and  while  this  retains  its 
hold  the  dream  of  a  universal  Protestantism  comes  through  the 
Gate  of  Ivory.  A  curious  ignorance  of  the  theology,  the  pol- 
ity and  the  temper  of  Catholicism  may  induce  some  believers 
in  the  reunion  of  Christendom  to  think  that  Rome  will  aban- 
don her  theory  of  the  Sacraments,  but  this  she  could  not  do 
and  survive.  On  the  other  hand,  the  assertion  is  common  that 
the  Protestant  dislike  of  the  ultramontane  position  of  Catholic 
teaching  has  driven  our  churches  into  negative  positions  con- 
cerning the  Sacraments  which  impoverish  spiritual  devotion. 
The  priesthoods  of  the  traditional  churches  owe  their  hold  to 
the  fact  that  their  members  prefer  symbolism  to  preaching  and 
will  trust  the  altar  which  offers  them  redemption  rather  than  a 
theological  "plan  of  salvation"  or  a  set  of  doctrinal  proposi- 
tions which  many  among  them  do  not  understand.  They  have 
been  taught  that  the  Divine  life  externalized  in  the  Incarna- 
tion is  still  before  them  and  that  its  sacrifice  acts  independ- 
ently of  their  transient  states  of  mind.  For  them  the  sources 
of  religious  regeneration  are  as  irrevocable  as  the  operations 
of  Nature;  and  like  these,  are  universal,  not  local;  con- 
tinuous, not  intermittent :  an  external  ablution  in  Baptism ;  an 
eternal  offering  in  the  Mass.     The  benefits  of  such  an  ordina- 


CROSS  CURRENTS  159 

tion  are  obtained  in  their  case  by  submission  to  ostensible  au- 
thority rather  than  from  personal  experience. 

Those  who  have  no  desire  to  use  the  most  august  elements 
of  faith  as  the  weapons  of  sectarian  warfare  will  discover  that 
the  tenacity  of  the  belief  in  Transubstantiation  or  Consub- 
stantiation  can  be  found,  not  mainly  in  the  sense  of  fear,  but 
in  the  sense  of  sin,  and  in  the  sense  of  need  for  deliverance 
from  sin.  If  Christ  is  not  present  as  Saviour  in  the  mystery 
of  the  Eucharist,  countless  worshipers  know  not  where  to  find 
Him.  There  have  they  been  accustomed  to  obtain,  as  they  be- 
lieve, that  which  their  souls  demand,  and  in  forms  which  suit 
temperaments  that  have  always  been  under  a  sacerdotal  regi- 
men,* for  which  the  IVIass,  so  far  from  being  a  "mischievous 
fable, ' '  is  the  keystone  of  Christianity  and  the  organic  life  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Protestants  are  repelled  by  the  assumptions  on  which  this 
theory  rests  and  the  method  it  employs.  It  is  contended  that 
they  not  only  seriously  impair  the  spiritual  conceptions  of  the 
rite,  but  destroy  the  democracy  of  believers  by  capitalizing  the 
dispensations  of  grace  in  behalf  of  hierarchical  privileges,  and 
by  denying  the  right  of  man's  approach  to  Heaven  unless 
through  an  anointed  priesthood.  Obedience  to  concrete  ob- 
jects of  faith  is  substituted  for  the  inward  wrestling  of  seek- 
ers, who,  like  Jacob  at  the  brook  Jabbok,  invoke  for  themselves 
Divine  mercy  and  forgiveness.  Their  more  daring  ventures 
produce  those  outstanding  religious  personalities  who  have 
known  the  regenerating  power  which  flows  from  the  soul's 
direct  contact  with  God.  They  are  not  so  numerous  as  the 
devotees  of  Sacramentalism,  but  the  purity  and  certitude  of 
their  convictions  have  made  them  preeminent  in  Christian  his- 
tory. Yet  the  confidence  they  inspire  in  us  should  not  prevent 
our  effort  to  discover  the  secret  of  that  strength  which  a  legiti- 
mate sacramentalism  affords.  This  is  the  more  necessary  be- 
cause the  times  require  it,  and  it  is  very  questionable  if  we 
have  it.  We  are  not  committed  to  any  theory  upon  the  ques- 
tion, and  can  exercise  our  right  either  to  maintain  or  reject 


160  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

any  of  the  explanations  of  the  Eucharist,  which  has  been  an 
exhaustless  subject  of  speculation.  But  its  supremacy  in 
Christian  worship  is  in  accordance  with  our  Lord's  teaching 
and  with  thfe  unbroken  practice  of  the  universal  Church.  It 
stimulates  the  noblest  faculties  of  the  heart  and  has  intimate 
dealings  with  its  purest  affections.  Delivered  from  the  clash 
of  warring  creeds  and  administered  with  reverence,  dignity 
and  simplicity,  the  Lord 's  Supper  enables  Christians  to  realize 
that,  below  the  surface  of  historic  separations,  are  regions  of 
personality  where  believers  are  united  to  one  another  and  to 
God  in  a  larger  self,  which  is  their  very  own  and  yet  common 
to  the  brotherhood :  the  self  of  each  and  the  self  of  all.  Avoid 
therefore  those  explanations  which  show  the  pressure  of  hos- 
tile environments,  and  in  your  retreat  from  their  obvious 
errors  do  not  relinquish  the  affirmative  truth  of  a  confessedly 
Divine  institution.  The  craving  for  a  scientific  frontier  in 
the  province  of  devotional  theology  can  yield  some  of  its  spir- 
itual essentials  too  freely,  and  thwart  by  its  undue  prepon- 
derance the  proper  uses  of  memory  and  imagination.  It  then 
becomes  quite  as  injurious  to  religion  as  excessive  sentiment. 
The  even  mind  keeps  its  balance  here  by  reflecting  that  a  sac- 
ramental worship  so  sacred  in  its  associations,  and  one  that  has 
directed  the  thoughts  of  the  members  of  every  church  to  the 
Eternal  Life-Giver,  must  always  be  dear  to  the  faithful. 

Further,  if  there  is  a  priesthood  of  all  believers,  by  virtue  of 
the  High  Priesthood  of  Christ,  then  His  ministers  receive  from 
Him  and  through  the  Church  a  priesthood  which  is  valid  so 
long  as  it  inheres  in  that  of  the  Divine  Society.  You  are  to 
be  the  servants  of  that  Society  ordained  to  feed  the  flock  by 
the  preaching  of  the  Word  and  the  administration  of  the  Sac- 
raments. Nothing  different  in  kind  from  the  rest  of  his 
brethren,  yet  first  among  equals  by  their  selection,  the  pastor 
as  priest  offers  their  thanksgivings  and  intercessions  to  the 
Father.  The  Church  also  is  God's  priest  in  the  world,  pre- 
senting to  Him  on  its  behalf  the  praises  which  the  world 
does  not  present  for  itself  and  spending  and  being  spent  in  her 
ministries  for  mankind.     A  coordinating  ideal  of  the  minis- 


CROSS  CURRENTS  161 

terial  office,  derived  from  New  Testament  teaching,  giving 
priesthood  and  prophecy  their  due  proportion  and  enabling 
Protestantism  to  approach  the  modern  mind  with  increased 
authority,  would  be  an  incalculable  gain.  Assuredly  there  is 
no  need,  as  some  have  insisted,  to  separate  these  two  great 
offices,  nor  to  array  organized  Christianity  in  antagonistic 
groups  which  advocate  their  respective  claims.  The  serener 
heights  of  contemplation,  which  rise  above  the  dust  and  din 
of  ecclesiastical  strife,  are  accessible  to  priest  and  prophet 
alike,  and  most  accessible  to  him  who  combines  both  in  his  min- 
istry. Thereby  he  perceives  that  the  Church  is,  or  should  be, 
not  only  the  interpreter,  but  the  Alter  Ego  of  Christ,  even  as 
He  Himself  is  God's.  She  does  not  flourish,  as  is  sometimes 
tacitly  implied,  at  the  preacher 's  behest,  or  for  his  convenience, 
but  that  everlasting  life  may  stream  through  all  her  ordered 
channels,  and  cause  her  children  and  mankind  to  rejoice  in 
the  Giver.  Nor  is  preaching  a  declamatory  ritual  to  be  metic- 
ulously observed  regardless  of  its  quality  or  effect.  Priest  and 
prophet  should  blend  in  a  fully  equipped  pastorate,  as  they 
did  in  the  case  of  Ezekiel.  They  exist  for  the  Church,  not  the 
Church  for  them ;  and  churches  exist,  not  alone  for  the  edifi- 
cation of  believers,  still  less  for  the  display  of  erudition  or  of 
eloquence;  but  that  the  life  which  is  in  them  as  a  corporate 
whole  shall  be  quickened,  developed,  trained  by  the  sacra- 
mental methods  Christ  commanded  and  by  every  other  ap- 
proved avenue  of  spiritual  intercourse. 

IV 

The  popular  appreciation  of  the  pulpit  would  be  aided  by  a 
system  of  doctrine  at  once  Christo-centrie  and  catholic.  Neu- 
trals and  cultists  alike  trade  on  our  theological  variations  and 
frequently  find  in  them  an  excuse  for  their  inertia  or  for  the 
adulterations  and  the  substitutes  which  they  offer  in  exchange 
for  Biblical  truth.  Hitherto  the  work  of  Christian  thinkers 
has  been  too  much  restricted  by  sectarian  views  and  formulas 
and  a  more  unified  doctrinal  consciousness  would  relieve  the 


162  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

embarrassment,  which  is  also  felt  by  preachers  who  sometimes 
face  inquiring  audiences  with  ammunition  that  does  not  ex- 
plode. I  am  not  suggesting  that  men  should  forego  their  con- 
victions; or  that  principles,  however  narrowly  conceived, 
should  be  secondary.  Neither  do  I  contend  that  pragmatic 
values  are  enough  of  themselves,  or  that  any  road  may  be  taken 
that  seems  to  arrive.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  concede  to  those 
who  clamor  for  a  breadth  which  is  thinness,  that  antiquity 
and  sectarianism  are  the  sinks  of  doctrine.  It  must  be  con- 
fessed, however,  that  the  sacred  science  has  fallen  into  disre- 
pute because  theologians  have  frequentlj^  attempted  to  sustain 
partisan  beliefs  by  methods  that  would  be  held  in  contempt  in 
any  other  department  of  learning.  How  often  clerical  assem- 
blies have  exhibited  an  unholy  glee  over  the  vain  assaults  of 
prejudice  upon  reality,  while  they  were  cold  to  truth  that  was 
contrary  to  their  prepossessions !  Of  course  such  conduct  was 
worse  than  useless,  and  their  hopes  were  hardly  fulfilled  before 
their  fears  were  again  upon  them.  The  edifying  spirit  of  ver- 
acity, the  interplay  of  knowledge,  the  oblique  uses  of  learning 
which  lead  the  minister  to  breadth  and  sanity  of  view  have  at 
last  obtained  a  foothold.  Yet  the  unfettered  scholarship  that 
moves  devoutly  and  discreetly  in  its  liberty  is  but  preparatory 
for  the  larger  synthesis  which  will  embody  its  results  in  state- 
ments free  from  contradictory  speculations  and  surcharged 
with  the  love  of  righteousness. 

Our  age  asks  for  these  syntheses  and  evinces  a  growing  an- 
tipathy toward  critical  faculties  which  are  not  constructive. 
The  traditionalism  that  asserts  itself  in  ex  cathedra  promulga- 
tions against  progress  has  no  better  ally  than  the  theologian 
who  leaves  vital  religious  matters  in  the  air.  So  far  from  ask- 
ing for  a  practically  creedless  system,  men  and  women  mani- 
fest an  ever  growing  desire  for  clear  and  definite  beliefs,  stand- 
ardized by  those  major  truths  of  revelation  which  are  sub- 
stantially accepted  because  they  sustain  human  nature  and 
duty.  Not  a  few  of  the  accomplished  doctors  of  the  Church, 
mindful  of  this  need,  have  foreshadowed  the  outlines  of  a 
theology  which  is  neither  Roman  nor  Protestant,  but  essen- 


CROSS  CURRENTS  163 

tially  Christian.  We  need  not  disavow  the  departure  of  the 
Reformers  from  traditional  doctrine  as  they  found  it  in  order 
to  discover  anew  the  purer  articles  of  the  Faith.  Thanks  to 
their  courageous  enterprise,  these  articles  are  forever  ours,  but 
they  should  be  rescued  from  the  clutches  of  prolonged  and 
futile  controversy  and  conveyed  to  the  public  in  a  manner 
becoming  their  unequaled  importance.  This  New  Theology, 
to  use  a  hackneyed  title,  must  be  of  God;  working,  as  He 
has  hitherto  chosen  to  work,  through  interpreters  whose  quest 
for  sacred  truth  honors  His  name  and  exalts  His  Son.  It 
must  be  broached  in  that  spirit  of  reverent  devotion  by  which 
alone  its  treatment  of  holy  things  can  be  made  profitable. 
Then  the  plain  people  to  whom  it  is  addressed  will  rejoice  in 
it  and  demonstrate  that  they  are  as  deeply  concerned  about 
religious  matters  as  thinkers  who  have  filled  volumes  with 
learned  technicalities  and  subtleties  of  speech.  Such  a  theol- 
ogy would  show  that  the  bonds  which  unite  the  infinitely  larger 
universe  we  inhabit  to  its  Creator  are  indissoluble.  It  would 
combine  what  we  know  of  Him  through  Nature,  Holy  Writ 
and  the  Incarnation  into  one  consistent  whole,  and  interpret 
their  messages  as  the  harmonious  expression  of  His  will.  It 
would  seek  the  truth  in  terms  of  life  unified  in  Christ  and 
verify  its  conclusions  by  the  experience  of  the  saints  of  the 
ages.  Above  all  else,  as  President  Braithwaite  has  observed, 
it  would  relate  its  tenets  to  the  consciousness  of  Jesus,  Whose 
personality  explains  and  regenerates  all  our  conceptions  of  the 
being  and  possibilities  of  man  when  in  fellowship  with  God. 
Representing,  as  you  do,  foremost  interests  of  truth  and 
righteousness,  it  is  expected  that  you  will  manifest  an  intellec- 
tual and  moral  fidelity  beyond  question,  and  you  must  match 
this  fidelity  against  the  errant  theories  that  usually  accom- 
pany the  rejection  of  normal  standards.  Some  of  these  theo- 
ries thrive  among  the  simple  because  they  flatter  their  inclina- 
tions, and  in  so  far  as  the  Church  has  tolerated  superstition 
and  ignorance  she  must  share  the  blame  for  their  ill.  The 
dogmas  which  nearly  a  century  ago  fed  religious  fanaticism 
also  bred  Mormonism,  and  since  then  they  have  had  something 


164  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

to  do  with  the  renewal  of  the  various  cults  of  our  day.  Half 
truths  or  wholesale  errors  frequently  originate  in  churches 
which  stagnate  in  the  lowest  forms  of  worship  or  refuse  to  ac- 
cept the  verified  conclusions  of  modem  knowledge. 

In  conclusion,  the  inference  is  plain  that  times  of  tragedy, 
for  all  their  darkness,  flash  radiance  upon  man's  upward 
progress.  This  progress  is  not  to  be  achieved  without  the  pa- 
tience and  the  labor  required  for  the  welding  Into  one  coherent 
whole  of  the  diversified  elements  which  have  been  mentioned 
here.  Ill-regulated  people,  in  whom  are  riot,  confusion  and 
despair,  may  decline  the  ventures  of  faith.  Exclusive  ones, 
who,  once  they  adhere  to  a  doctrinal  theory,  will  hear  noth- 
ing against  it,  and  who  disparage  any  discoveries  which  seem 
to  discredit  it,  may  remain  immured  in  their  impotent  con- 
servatism. Impulsive  ones,  who  have  not  taught  their  tongues 
to  say,  "I  do  not  know,"  may  vehemently  protest  that  they 
need  no  guidance.  Nevertheless  we  do,  and  those  who  share 
that  need  are,  with  us,  being  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  the 
re-occupation  of  a  Faith  that  shall  flourish  and  bear  much 
fruit  because  it  is  rooted  in  Christ,  in  sound  reason  and  in 
the  realities  of  being.  Beyond  the  misunderstandings,  the 
schisms,  the  heresies,  the  false  policies,  the  deceitful  expedi- 
ences, the  sterile  deserts  of  feuds  and  hates  in  Church  and 
State,  the  lover  of  his  generation  discerns  everywhere  the  re- 
assembling of  the  Lord's  children  that  they  may  enter  the 
promised  heritage.  He  will  assuredly  bring  them  to  the  place 
of  their  desire,  to  the  earthly  abode  of  peace  and  righteous- 
ness, where  whatever  they  have  hoped  and  dreamed  of  good 
shall  exist,  not  in  its  appearance  but  in  its  reality.  There  is 
that  richer  self-realization,  both  for  individuals  and  for  so- 
ciety, of  which  even  all  service  is  a  by-product.  And  there 
the  Church,  raised  up  out  of  all  the  churches,  shall  stand  mas- 
sively amidst  many  ruins,  as  God's  citadel  of  holiness  in  word 
and  deed  in  the  world  that  now  is. 


CHAPTER  V 

PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM 
AND  PREACHING 


ON   WISDOM 

At  the  first  she  will  walk  with  him  in  crooked  ways, 

And  will  bring  fear  and  dread  upon  him, 

And  torment  him  with  her  discipline, 

Until  she  may  trust  his  soul,  and  try  him  by  her  judgments : 

Then  will  she  return  again  the  straight  way  unto  him, 

And  will  gladden  him,  and  reveal  to  him  her  secrets. 

Eeclesiasticus  iv :  17,  18. 


CHAPTER  V 

PRESENT  DAY   INTELLECTUALISM   AND  PREACHING 

The  modern  mind — Science  and  theology — Indictment  of  the  Church 
— Influence  of  science  upon  thought — Limits  of  science — Prog- 
ress determined  by  its  ethical  nature — Change  in  philosophical 
temper — Bergson — Eueken — Pragmatism — Pessimism — The  ver- 
dict of  faith — Intellectual  honesty — A  cultured  ministry — In- 
tellectualism  and  spirituality. 

The  spiritual  difficulties  of  the  modem  mind  have  been  cre- 
ated by  the  fact  that  it  has  found  itself  situated  between  two 
sets  of  teachers  and  guides,  neither  of  whom  could  really  sat- 
isfy its  demands.  Scientific  inquiry  has  placed  the  average 
thoughtful  man  in  a  painful  dilemma.  It  has  sapped  re- 
ligious authority  while  at  the  same  time  it  has  proved  incap- 
able of  supplying  out  of  its  own  knowledge  the  truths  the 
soul  requires.  Why  should  science  seek  to  verify  the  spiritual 
phenomena  for  which  it  does  not  and  cannot  have  valid  proof? 
We  can  heartily  respect  its  intellectual  attainments  and  rely 
upon  the  information  it  imparts,  but  the  deepest  meanings 
and  purposes  of  existence  are  beyond  its  plummet;  and  not- 
withstanding the  high  qualities  which  scientists  have  dis- 
played, such  as  courage,  perseverance,  devotion  to  freedom  of 
thought  and  reverence  for  ascertained  truth,  they  have  utterly 
failed  to  give  men  an  adequate  philosophy  of  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  where  theology  has  capitulated  to  science  and  no 
longer  disputes  its  established  claims,  the  capitulation  has  too 
often  been  sullen  and  reluctant,  in  some  ways  less  candid  than 
the  stiff-necked  conservatism  of  churches  which  still  maintain 
a  useless  defense  of  exploded  theories.  The  intentional  ignor- 
ing of  intellectual  difficulties  and  the  conspiracies  of  silence 
about  them  which  have  characterized  the  dealings  of  theolo- 

167 


168  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

gians  with  science  have  forfeited  sympathy  and  respect.  The 
resolution  of  those  difficulties  in  a  higher  unity  has  been  post- 
poned in  deference  to  orthodox  susceptibilities,  with  the  result 
that  unreconciled  factors  have  been  left  in  suspense,  or  falsely 
compromised,  or  are  still  fiercely  debated.  Professor  E.  A. 
Wodehouse,  in  discussing  this  question,  insists  that  the 
churches  have  passed  out  of  touch  with  the  thought  movements 
of  the  age.  "They  no  longer  mould  public  opinion ;  they  have 
ceased  to  lead ;  in  a  period  when  so  much  of  the  profoundest 
importance  is  going  on  in  every  department  of  life  their  voice 
is  practically  dumb.  It  has  indeed  been  a  matter  of  general 
comment  of  later  years,  how,  with  problems  gathering  on 
every  side,  the  churches  have  had  no  practical  solution  to  offer ; 
how,  in  time  of  disturbance,  they  have  conspicuously  failed  to 
be,  what  we  might  have  expected  them  to  be,  agencies  of  har- 
mony and  peace,  strong  enough  to  impose  a  higher  ideal  upon 
the  struggle  of  conflicting  selfishnesses;  how,  in  a  word,  they 
have  seemed  to  have  no  message  in  particular  for  the  age  in 
which  we  are  living,  but  have  continued  to  move  in  their  own 
little  world  of  retrospect  and  quotation — remote,  unreal,  aloof 
— with  few  words  of  comfort,  no  word  of  explanation,  none  of 
elucidation  for  those  struggling  with  the  strong  realities  of 
outer  life. ' '  ^  One  dofes  not  have  to  acquiesce  in  this  extensive 
indictment  to  admit  that  the  ardor  of  a  vital  faith  is  no  longer 
with  us,  and  that  there  has  settled  down  upon  religious  teach- 
ing and  effort  too  much  of  the  chill  negation  which  always 
marks  the  absence  of  firm  and  positive  beliefs.  In  this  at- 
mosphere the  Christian  pulpit  is  summoned  to  what  may  prove 
to  be  the  greatest  enterprise  of  its  history.  To  the  spiritual 
hunger  which  surrounds  it  on  every  side,  whether  avowed  or 
unavowed,  has  been  added  a  sense  of  desolation  and  almost  of 
despair.  The  age  has  gained  much,  but  it  has  well  nigh  lost 
its  own  soul,  and,  in  the  sequence,  whatever  it  has  gained  has 
been  heavily  assessed. 

We  do  not  concede  for  a  moment,  however,  that  the  religion 
of  Jesus  has  failed,  or  that  it  will  become  less  of  a  solution 

lA  World  Expectant,  pp_  46-47. 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     169 

and  more  of  a  problem  as  time  passes.  On  the  contrary,  it 
has  yet  to  be  fully  and  fearlessly  expounded  and  applied.  It 
will  remain  undismayed  so  long  as  faith  wells  up  in  the 
human  heart  and  continue  to  perform  its  indispensable  work 
while  the  elemental  needs  of  humanity  endure.  Its  super- 
abundant life  cannot  be  repressed,  and  if  checked  in  one  place, 
will  break  out  in  another.  This  determined  flow  and  differ- 
ence of  direction  need  cause  no  alarm  so  long  as  the  center 
of  life's  gravity  is  in  Christ,  in  His  Church  and  in  the  min- 
istry which  He  has  appointed.  Though  some  of  its  extraor- 
dinary ebullitions  assume  novel  forms  and  permeate  social 
and  intellectual  movements  in  a  manner  foreign  to  received 
prescription,  we  are  not  to  condemn  them  but  to  broaden 
our  sympathies  and  policies  until  these  absorb  whatever  Christ 
has  sanctioned.  The  war  He  wages  against  unrighteousness 
defies  all  calculations.  Its  unforeseen  sequels  develop  fresh 
phases  of  thought  and  action.  We  are  mastered  by  its  events, 
and  must  adapt  ourselves  to  their  course.  For  these  and 
other  reasons  the  controversies  and  changes  attending  Chris- 
tian progress  are  not  nearly  so  formidable  as  they  appear. 
Many  of  them  originate  in  mere  friction,  and  others  are  cre- 
ated by  the  vitality  of  Christian  faith,  which  is  an  organic 
growth  that  retains  its  virility  while  its  successive  manifesta- 
tions vary.  In  like  manner  social  phenomena  may  appear 
mutually  opposed  and  yet  prove  cooperative:  rival  political 
and  economic  factions  are  members  of  one  body,  and  the  nation 
has  but  to  be  threatened  in  its  life  for  the  contending  groups 
that  constitute  it  to  unite  as  one  man  in  its  defense.  As  is 
the  nation,  so  is  the  internal  constitution  of  the  Church. 
Theological  and  ecclesiastical  parties  regard  her  creeds  as 
fixed  or  flexible;  yet  their  disputes  have  more  violence  than 
venom,  more  semblance  than  reality.  Outsiders  who  do  not 
know  the  Church  well,  or  zealots  who  know  nothing  except 
their  own  opinions,  magnify  the  importance  of  these  dis- 
sensions. Despite  them,  Christianity  lives;  and  because  it 
lives  it  moves  upward  in  the  scale  of  life  and,  therefore,  of 
complexity  and  variety.     Mark  its  growth  in  seasons  of  agita- 


170  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

tion  when  it  has  expanded  rapidly  by  reason  of  active  opposi- 
tion, and  again  its  decrease  in  seasons  of  comparative  tran- 
quillity when  not  infrequently  it  has  become  lethargic  and 
lost  ground. 

The  modern  mind  often  speaks  of  the  Church  and  her 
ministry  as  though  they  expressed  nothing  more  than  human 
designs.  The  tendency  to  make  the  question  of  their  sur- 
vival and  titness  one  of  voluntary  action  dependent  upon 
Christians  or  non-Christians,  and  to  suppose  that,  in  the  last 
analysis,  religious  history  is  merely  the  record  of  that  action, 
prevails  in  the  pulpit  as  well  as  outside  it.  These  one-sided 
conceptions  ignore  the  truth  that  the  human  will  cannot 
operate  in  any  laudable  direction  unless  it  is  energized  by 
the  indwelling  Spirit  of  God.  How  much  less  can  it  visualize, 
let  alone  attempt,  the  world's  evangelization  apart  from  His 
aid?  Behind  the  tumult  of  every  era  the  devout  recognize 
His  silent  ministry,  which  implants  saving  truth  in  individuals 
and  nations.  Wonderful  as  are  the  miracles  which  have  been 
wrought  in  men  they  are  eclipsed  by  God's  saving  ways  among 
the  nations.  Every  student  is  aware  of  the  Providence  which 
has  been  "the  great  corrector  of  enormous  times,"  the  "shaker 
of  o'er  rank  states,"  using  foreordained  instrumentalities 
to  promote  one  sovereign  will,  to  thwart  vast  projects  which 
prudent  or  predaceous  leaders  indorsed,  to  grant  to  causes 
they  ridiculed  or  persecuted  an  inexplicable  eminence. 
Surely  the  spiritual  destiny  of  man  is  hidden  in  the  deep 
counsels  of  the  Almighty,  and  kept  intact  by  the  Power  to 
which  all  must  ultimately  submit.  These  reflections  steady 
our  attempt  to  understand  the  modern  mind  to  which  we 
have  to  give  our  thought,  our  imagination,  our  soul,  that  we 
may  know  and  serve  it  without  partiality  or  timidity.  For 
though  the  spiritual  facts  and  forces  within  and  around  us, 
which  indicate  the  character  of  God's  government,  are  very 
liable  to  be  misconstrued,  they,  at  least,  justify  our  confidence 
in  its  absolute  rectitude. 

Those  facts  and  forces  lie  at  the  root  of  what  is  loosely  called 
modernity,  and  have  far  larger  meanings  than  any  ideas  em- 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  171 

ployed  to  explain  them.  Why,  then,  should  we  speak  of  the 
modern  mind  as  illogical,  capricious,  irresponsible ;  as  a  cross- 
country mind  with  a  sort  of  steeple-chase  philosophy  that 
bounds  buoyantly  over  all  obstacles  and  takes  short  cuts  to 
coveted  conclusions?  Probably  these  criticisms  are  true  as 
far  as  they  go,  but  they  do  not  go  far  enough ;  they  neither 
do  justice  to  the  modern  mind  nor  serve  the  aims  of  the  Chris- 
tian preacher.  There  are  phases  in  contemporary  thought 
that  cannot  be  correctly  described  as  thinking  at  all,  but  as  a 
conglomerate  of  misleading  notions  about  religion,  philosophy 
and  science,  which  will  not  down,  despite  repeated  exposure. 
Yet  these  phases  are  no  more  than  surface  motions  on  a  sani- 
tating ocean  of  reflection,  in  which  are  contained  the  reser- 
voirs of  renewed  life  and  power.  Even  their  most  arbitrary 
declarations  are  best  met  not  by  epigrammatic  sparring  but 
by  the  sincerity  and  fairness  of  those  who  are  sure  of  them- 
selves and  of  their  message,  and  can  afford  to  be  magnanimous. 
Nothing  is  gained  by  fostering  such  an  intense  dislike  of  one's 
own  times  as  inflamed  Carlyle,  distracted  Newman  and  has 
hurt  a  host  of  lesser  spirits.  The  rage  against  modern  thought 
has  sometimes  been  the  feeder  of  social  and  religious  bigotry 
and  impotence.  To  be  generouslj^  appreciative  of  that  which 
in  current  thinking  aims  at  the  right  is  but  intellectual  cour- 
tesy; cordially  to  accept  that  which  in  it  is  confirmatory  of 
good  is  but  intellectual  honesty.  I  am  aware  that  the  ex- 
travagances of  some  twentieth-century  oracles  annoy  sober 
people;  yet  how  often  are  they  the  surplusage  of  ways  of 
thinking  that  are  as  typical  of  our  age  as  the  thinking  of  the 
Greeks  about  Fate  was  to  them. 

After  all,  the  modem  mind,  with  its  excellences  and  defects, 
be  it  for  or  against  us,  is  the  mind  with  which  we  have  to  do. 
It  has  reactions  and  radicalisms,  some  of  which  are  wise  and 
some  foolish ;  but  it  is  all  we  have  as  the  theater  of  our  specific 
task.  Touch  it  at  its  best  and  you  perceive  that  it  is  thor- 
oughly alive;  progressive  in  much  that  is  admirable;  wisely 
conservative  beyond  the  liking  of  some  progressives;  thor- 
oughly aware  that  the  letter  kills,  but  the  spirit  gives  life. 


172  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Such  a  mind  deserves  something  better  from  us  than  either 
dogmatic  refutations  or  the  parsimonious  references  which 
make  a  great  deal  of  preaching  negligible.  Inquire  upon  this 
point  how  much  of  the  present  distaste  for  sermonic  utterance 
has  been  caused  by  the  obstinacy  and  prejudice  of  orthodoxy 
no  less  than  by  a  heterodoxy  averse  to  the  wealth  of  acceptable 
tradition,  before  you  decide  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  in- 
tellectualisms  against  which  we  are  warned  by  certain  schools 
of  piety.  These  intellectualisms  are  the  fruit  of  that  revolt 
against  absolutism  in  Church  and  state  which  established  the 
freedom  we  to-day  enjoy.  From  Roger  Bacon  onward  its 
advocates  were  wedded  to  knowledge,  not  for  itself  alone,  but 
for  its  humanitarian  and  practical  benefits.  The  endowments 
we  inherit  from  them  in  the  arts  and  sciences  have  enthroned 
inductive  reason  in  seats  once  occupied  by  medieval  theolo- 
gians and  philosophers.  There  were  drawbacks,  discrepancies, 
conceits,  fancies,  which  linger  on :  ratiocinations  which  made 
the  human  brain  the  god  of  everything.  Religion,  ethics, 
language,  the  universe,  even  Deity,  were  to  be  apprehended 
aright  by  the  vigilant  practice  of  unaided  reason  in  a  spirit 
almost  of  defiance. 

"No  dream,  no  prophet  ecstasies, 

No  sudden  rending  of  the  veil  of  clay, 

No  angel  visitant,  no  opening  skies" 

were  asked  for.  Nevertheless,  they  came  and  come  yet,  and 
wise  husbandmen  of  the  Christian  Faith  who  plowed  with 
the  oxen  of  a  mundane  metaphysic  turned  to  fruitful  account 
the  things  supposed  to  be  against  the  Faith.  Religion  is  now 
seen  to  be  far  more  than  an  alluring  ideal  of  the  twilight 
zone  of  thought  which  every  one  is  supposed  to  revere  and  few 
are  expected  to  attain.  It  has  its  definite  laws  and  permanent 
types,  which  pass  through  regular  stages  and  issue  in  assured 
consequences.  Its  mystical,  moral,  rational  and  authoritative 
elements  are  analyzed  and  classified.  The  canons  and  stand- 
ards of  the  modern  mind  have  been  applied  to  all  forms  of 
ancient  beliefs.     The  scientific  exclusion  of  myths  and  legends 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  173 

has  been  enforced.  Doctrines  of  every  kind  have  to  show  that 
they  are  not  thinly  woven  speculations  but  conclusions  linked 
with  verities  and  sustained  by  the  facts  they  formally  state. 
Trustworthy  comparisons  are  instituted  between  the  historic 
and  literary  religions  of  mankind.  These  comparisons  con- 
vince us  that  the  spiritual  consciousness  has  been  the  coherent 
and  solidifying  force  of  the  social  order;  and,  further,  that 
if  the  social  order  were  perfectly  equitable  in  all  its  arrange- 
ments, its  freedom  and  justice  would  still  have  to  depend 
upon  the  nurture  which  religion  supplies. 

Nothing  natural  to  man  could  undergo  the  ordeals  religion 
has  endured  in  struggling  toward  a  greater  clearness  of  con- 
ception concerning  God  and  the  race  without  having  painful 
as  well  as  joyous  experiences.  Society  now  and  always, 
whether  it  is  to  be  ruled  or  educated,  simply  suffered  to  exist 
or  divinely  redeemed,  is  an  endless  problem.  Yet  the  might 
and  exhilaration  of  Christianity  can  be  ascribed  in  part  to 
the  resistance  of  society.  The  meal  is  never  the  leaven,  or 
for  what  is  the  leaven  meant?  It  is  one  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  Evangel  committed  to  your  care  that  it  has 
emerged  triumphantly  from  the  ordeals  to  which  it  has  been 
subjected,  and  made  myriads  blessed  by  ennobling  human  na- 
ture. You  receive  it  stripped  of  accretions  which  have  often 
impeded  its  advance  and  with  its  sources  clearly  traced  to 
their  origin  in  Jesus,  in  Whom  alone  are  found  the  spiritual 
life  and  truth  essential  to  the  highest  progress.  Do  not  pre- 
sume that  the  number  of  your  hearers  who  are  aware  of  these 
advantages  is  too  small  to  make  the  fortunes  of  intelligent 
preaching.  I  would  suggest  that  the  opposite  is  true  and 
that  the  poverty  of  not  a  little  preaching  is  caused  by  its 
scanty  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  mind.  No  ambassador 
of  God  can  respect  those  rights  as  he  should,  or  answer  their 
interrogations  as  they  will  have  to  be  answered,  unless  he  is 
alert  to  the  revolution  wrought  by  scientific  methods.  To  be 
sure,  he  must  sift  its  gains  from  its  losses  and  dwell  upon 
its  constructive  rather  than  its  destructive  aspects.  There 
is  far  more  in  it  than  controversialists  suspect,  who  dispute 


174  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

upon  Biblical  miracles  and  the  inerrancy  of  Scripture.  Ac- 
cidental traits  do  not  indicate  its  essence  nor  its  prospective 
sway.  The  bickerings  that  follow  in  its  wake  are  partly  the 
result  not  of  the  facts  it  has  guaranteed,  but  of  a  theology 
that  has  practically  obscured  the  immanent  Deity  of  prophets, 
psalmists  and  apostles.  The  tokens  of  God's  presence  in  His 
own  world  were  too  frequently  found  in  those  apparent 
breaches  of  His  continuous  administration  which  were  mag- 
nified as  miraculous.  The  sublime  utterance  of  Jesus,  ''My 
Father  worketh  even  until  now,"  indicative  of  His  constant 
attitude,  was  irreconcilable  with  pulpit  descriptions  of  the 
God  afar  off.  Temperamental  clergymen  were  here  deficient 
not  in  reverence  but  in  reality,  and  could  very  well  have  been 
more  intellectual  in  their  outlook  without  hurting  their  ser- 
mons. Predominance  of  the  intellect  has  injured  a  few 
preachers,  as  it  did  the  poetry  of  Goethe  and  of  Browning, 
but  this  disproportion  has  not  generally  marked  the  clerical 
profession,  and  your  congregations  will  risk  its  presence 
because  they  are  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  epoch-making 
discoveries  that  have  illuminated  our  age.  The  fiat  earth 
found  to  be  a  spheroid;  this  supposedly  stationary  planet  a 
satellite  spinning  around  the  sun;  the  stellar  bodies  stretch- 
ing in  measureless  bulk  and  multitude  throughout  the  vast 
void ;  the  antiquity  of  man  as  the  last  and  crowning  work  of 
God, — these  revelations  of  science  have  driven  wise  preachers 
to  seek  the  foundations  of  ethical  and  religious  belief  not 
in  ontology  but  in  psychology,  in  the  facts  of  human  expe- 
rience as  registered  and  attested  by  consciousness.  Pulpit 
power  consists  in  possessing  a  commanding  position  as  re- 
gards your  ends;  to  secure  this  you  must  take  cognizance  of 
the  changes  named  and,  what  is  even  more  necessary,  of  the 
truth  that  their  chief  effects  are  found  not  in  the  physical 
sciences  but  in  theology,  in  those  consequent  and  correspond- 
ing changes  which  mould  our  ideas  of  the  Creator  and  of  His 
relation  to  His  handiwork.  Hence  the  universe  is  no  longer 
regarded  as  an  immediate  structure  raised  by  fiat,  complete 
and  ready  from  the  outset,  to  be  later  wrecked  at  catastrophic 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     175 

intervals,  but  as  the  ever-expanding  emanation  of  the  life 
and  thought  of  Deity,  through  which  He  manifests  His  un- 
changing purposes  that  the  end  may  justify  the  process. 

These  views  do  not  involve  your  abandonment  of  a  single 
truth  of  Christianity;  on  the  contrary,  they  leave  all  its 
essentials  unimpaired.  Your  declaration  of  these  essentials, 
far  from  being  restrained  by  the  astounding  discoveries  of 
science,  is  thereby  more  deeply  founded  in  the  nature  of 
things,  and  thus  made  more  authoritative.  The  best  preach- 
ing you  will  achieve,  which  in  the  long  run  will  prove  its 
acceptability  to  mind  and  heart,  will  not  be  that  of  pietists 
who  deplore  scientific  dominancy,  nor  that  of  negativists  who 
deny  religious  mysteries,  but  the  preaching  in  which  religion 
interprets,  and  is  interpreted  by,  science;  in  which  faith  and 
knowledge  subsist  together  and  reenforce  each  other.  For 
this  reenforcement  the  times  are  ripe,  and  the  preacher  who 
harmonizes  what  he  has  to  say  with  the  validated  intellectual- 
ism  of  the  age  will  gain  in  range  and  significance  of  utter- 
ance and  upraise  the  souls  of  his  hearers  without  attempting 
to  infringe  upon  their  mental  integrity.  They  feel,  as  we 
do,  that  the  rational  universe  is  a  heavenly  ordination  which 
should  have  its  place  in  the  general  scheme  of  divinity.  For 
their  sakes  and  the  sake  of  the  Gospel  let  us  strive  to  articu- 
late both  Nature  and  Revelation,  while  at  the  same  time  we 
detach  the  Evangel  from  transient  forms  and  show  that  the 
pulpit  can  feed  a  spiritually  famished  world.  Every  quality 
of  the  mind  contributory  to  this  testimony  should  be  drawn 
upon.  Sheer  thought  can  of  itself  hardly  decide  any  of  the 
great  questions  that  determine  the  religious  life.  Observed 
facts  and  reasoned  conclusions  go  with  us  but  a  part  of  the 
way  that  leads  to  peace  and  reconciliation  with  God.  Always 
there  remains  a  No-Man 's-Land,  which  we  must  cross  by 
intuition,  by  deep-seated  trust  and  emotion,  in  reliance  upon 
that  subliminal  self  which  is  the  secret  chamber  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit.  Hence,  in  forming  a  considered  judgment  of  ef- 
fective preaching,  we  have  to  act  not  only  upon  fact  and 
theory,  but  upon  the  entire  trend  of  life,  viewed  as  the  gift 


176  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

which   is   understood   only   when   consecrated  to   its   Giver. 

Not  a  few  Protestants  of  every  denomination  are  convinced 
that  there  is  a  divergence  between  the  creeds  of  the  churches 
and  the  actual  teaching  of  Christ.  They  know  that  the 
Reformation  was  the  latest  and  perhaps  the  greatest  occasion 
for  creedal  readjustment,  but  they  contend  that  the  vast 
increase  of  modem  knowledge  makes  it  impossible  to  treat 
the  Lutheran  upheaval  as  a  finality.  We  must  persevere  in 
reverently  reinterpreting  New  Testament  truth  in  the  light 
of  recent  learning,  and  the  holy  memories  with  which  that 
truth  is  associated  should  urge  us  to  find  its  highest  presenta- 
tions. For  if  Christianity  is  the  timeless,  universal  religion, 
which  assimilates  what  is  assimilable  in  the  faiths  of  all  ages, 
its  evidences  must  be  amplified  upon  a  scale  commensurate 
with  its  intrinsic  grandeur  and  external  scope.  This  duty  has 
assumed  imperativeness  during  and  since  the  World  War. 
Principal  W.  T.  Davison,  one  of  the  .sanest  of  Christian  in- 
terpreters, has  told  us  that  we  do  not  have  to  admit  that  the 
foundations  of  the  Faith  have  been  shaken  by  the  devasta- 
tions of  the  last  quadrennium.  But  he  also  warns  us  that 
they  cannot  be  maintained  in  future  by  a  rehearsal  of  time- 
worn  proofs  and  evidences,  which  have  lost  their  power  to 
convince  and  persuade.  ''These  were  valuable  enough  in 
their  day,  and  their  inmost  truth  is  valuable  still.  But  every 
generation  should  set  itself  to  grapple  closely  with  the  spir- 
itual problems  of  its  own  time,  and  out  of  its  own,  it  may  be, 
tragic  experience  to  draw  new  strength  for  a  Faith  which 
can  never  flourish  unless  rooted  in  sound  reason  and  in  the 
facts  of  actual  life.  It  can  hardly  be  questioned  by  those 
who  believe  in  God  at  all  that  He  intends  men  to  learn  deeper 
lessons  than  they  have  learned  before,  concerning  His  relation 
to  them  and  their  relation  to  Him,  from  the  cataclysms 
through  which  we  are  passing.  And  already  from  amidst  the 
keenest  and  most  widespread  suffering  which  humanity  has 
known  for  centuries,  the  dawn  is  appearing  of  that  new  Day 
of  God  which  is  to  follow. ' '  ^ 

2  The  London  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1917;  p.  260. 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  177 

Dr.  Davison's  resume  reminds  one  of  Shelley's  definition 
of  the  epic  as  a  summary  of  the  spiritual  life  of  an  age  for 
the  age  succeeding.  The  present  situation,  somber  though 
it  appears,  is  epical  and  vibrates  with  a  power  that  should 
revive  religious  principles.  The  theories  of  evolution  and 
the  conservation  of  energy  are  no  longer,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
sole  possession  of  the  scholars;  they  are  also  the  conclusions 
of  average  intelligence.  But,  running  parallel  with  their  wide 
acceptance,  there  is  a  decided  movement  toward  theistic  and 
Christian  beliefs.  The  age,  which  has  been  censured  for 
yielding  to  the  spell  of  science,  has,  notwithstanding,  been 
most  strongly  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  The  signs 
of  the  times  point  to  an  era  of  faith  which  will  usher  in  a 
great  and  gratifying  advance.  In  this  connection  it  is  in- 
teresting to  observe  that  no  sooner  had  the  critical  method 
laid  baseless  tradition  low  and  elevated  reason  than  it  pro- 
ceeded to  treat  cavalierly  the  faculty  it  had  set  up.  The 
modern  mind  has  consequently  become  skeptical  of  reason 
when  it  invades  the  things  pertaining  to  spiritual  and  moral 
regnancy;  and  the  bold  assertion  that  reason  alone  could 
supply  a  competent  account  of  creation  and  of  the  Creator 
is  now  thoroughly  discredited.  iThe  note  of  misgiving  is 
audible  in  the  speculations  of  scientists  who  persistently  at- 
tempt to  raise  the  lower  importance  of  the  physical  order  to 
the  perspective  of  an  all-comprehending  philosophy.  They 
rest  their  argument  upon  premises  that  are  pure  assumptions, 
and  nothing  could  be  more  erroneous  than  a  logic  thus  de- 
rived, since  the  closer  its  reasoning  the  less  possible  are  its 
conclusions.  Even  reason  itself,  in  which  such  implicit  trust 
was  reposed,  has  been  assailed  as  a  fractional  and  delusive 
element  in  the  apprehension  of  reality.  When  science  affects 
the  position  of  a  supreme  mentor,  or  speaks  about  matters 
of  faith  as  belonging  to  the  rhetoric  of  imagination,  it  loses 
caste,  forfeits  consideration,  and  is  guilty  of  the  offenses 
which  scientists  have  freely  imputed  to  theologians. 

We  readily  acknowledge  that  pure  science  is  an  indispensa- 
ble factor  to  which  all  must  give  heed.     The  deliberate  and 


178  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

patient  attention  it  has  concentrated  on  sensory  phenomena; 
the  lucid  and  laboratory  manner  of  its  expositions;  and  the 
general  diffusion  of  its  results,  have  medicated  fiction,  influ- 
enced art  and  expressed  ethics  and  sociology  in  biological 
terms.     Yet  it  occupies  but  one  among  many  provinces  in 
an  infinite  system,  behind  which  lie  the  complex  processes 
of  unnumbered  forces  and  aims.    A  few  gifted  souls  who 
watched  its  modern  beginnings   and   admitted  their   better 
side,  retained  a  sense  of  proportion  and  withstood  its  auto- 
cratic   tendencies.     Among    these    were    Matthew    Arnold, 
Clough  and  Tennyson,  who  looked  upon  science  as  a  negative 
agent,   a   cause    of   melancholy,    resignation    and    finally    of 
pessimism.     Notwithstanding  its  advantages,  for  them  it  sub- 
verted sacred  truths  and  brought  with  it  an  ever  present 
sense  of  loss.     Doubtless  their  anxious  fears  caused  them  to 
overshoot  the  mark.    But  while  we  may  disagree  with  them, 
we  should  remember  that  science  has  been  made  in  some  vital 
respects  the  source  of  impoverishment  rather  than  enrich- 
ment to  human  life.     The  nominally  Christian  state  which 
repeatedly  boasted  its  strict  adherence  to  the  scientific  spirit 
and  method  has  been  guilty  of  the  most  heinous  and  un- 
natural crimes.     The  observant  preacher  will  ponder  these 
ferocities;    he   will   perceive    apart    from    their    wilful    and 
brutal  betrayal  of  the  Divine  order,  that,  in  so  far  as  science 
broaches  the  idea  of  Deity  at  all,  it  goes  no  further  than  the 
utterly  inadequate  Greek  conception  of  God  as  law.     Verily, 
He  is  law,  but  He  is  also  love  and  holiness,  justice  and  com- 
passion; and  the  scientific  conception  is  safe  only  when  it  is 
subordinated  to  the  revelation  of  His  nature  in  the  Incarna- 
tion.    The  famous  Victorians  already  named,  who  were  styled 
sentimentalists  and  dreamers  by  controversialist  cliques,  were 
well  aware  that  moral  progress  conditions  all  other  progress 
and  determines  its  character.     Not  only  science,  but  industry, 
government,   education,  and  even  religion,  might  claim  all 
progress  on  their  own  ground  and  in  themselves.     But  this, 
as  Principal  Jacks  observes,  would  not  prove  progress  as  men 
ultimately  have  to  accept  it,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  179 

these  pursuits  increase  the  enduring  qualities  of  human  good. 
As  for  science,  of  which  we  are  speaking,  it  takes  back,  with 
compound  interest  in  blood  and  tears,  what  it  gives,  unless 
it  is  subjected  to  the  will  of  God  as  made  known  in  Jesus 
Christ.  What  are  its  prospects,  or  those  of  ethics,  apart  from 
His  lordship?  The  one  becomes  a  series  of  formal  inferences 
without  final  meaning;  the  other  is  reduced  to  an  academic 
exercise. 

Furthermore,  a  credence  as  radical  as  that  required  by  the 
postulates  of  God  and  the  soul  has  been  imposed  upon  science 
by  experience.  It  has  thus  abandoned  the  reckless  misbe- 
havior of  its  adolescence  and  assumed  a  sober  and  befitting 
deference.  The  militant  weapons  it  formerly  brandished  have 
been  laid  aside,  and  it  bows  in  the  house  of  faith  where 
it  solicits  the  hypotheses  requisite  to  its  purposes  as  humbly 
as  does  any  other  creed.  This  admirable  virtue  is  also  ex- 
hibited by  philosophy,  which  is  now  ready  to  believe  that  it 
was  made  for  man  and  not  man  for  it.  Its  latest  phases  are 
expressive  of  a  hope  to  obtain  wisdom  by  waiting  upon  the 
instincts,  the  intuitions  and  the  habits  of  the  race  as  a  whole. 
The  prejudice  it  has  often  shown  toward  religion  was  due  to 
its  haunting  realization  of  the  fact  that  ' '  to  concede  anything 
true  of  that  great  bond,  so  far  from  being  an  armistice,  was 
nothing  less  than  unconditional  surrender  to  a  master." 
Our  concern  here  is  only  to  mention  these  intellectual  move- 
ments and  their  bearing  on  preaching.  Yet  when  we  contrast 
the  mechanical  and  empirical  theories  of  a  few  decades  past 
with  the  idealistic  accent  and  emphasis  of  to-day,  we  are 
tempted  to  enlarge  upon  a  theme  which  is  not  wholly  outside 
our  subject.  Reflect,  for  example,  upon  the  Spencerian  hy- 
pothesis, which  but  a  short  while  ago  enunciated  as  axiomatic 
the  proposition  that  fundamental  and  reasoned  belief  about 
a  First  Cause,  an  essential  selfhood,  or  the  nature  of  things, 
could  neither  be  proved  nor  disproved,  but  must  remain  un- 
known and  unknowable.  The  advocates  of  this  peculiar  in- 
vention purged  themselves  of  indifference  to  religion  and 
professed  a  desire  to  know  its  certitudes,  but  paradoxically 


180  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

enough  that  desire  was  extinguished  by  their  predetermination 
that  such  certitudes  could  not  be  known.  This  inference, 
however  modestly  worded,  was  at  bottom  a  subtle  concession 
to  the  vagaries  of  physicists  who  had  outrun  philosophy.  For 
when  the  facts  of  science  are  assembled  more  speedily  than 
they  can  be  reduced  to  order,  as  was  their  case,  confusion  is 
likely  to  occur.  The  ceaseless  questionings  of  the  human 
spirit  refused  to  tolerate  the  clever  negativism  for  which 
Spencer  and  his  disciples  were  responsible.  In  the  inevitable 
revulsion  that  followed  men  swung  free  of  the  notion  of  the 
unknowable  God  and  of  a  Creator  imprisoned  by  His  own 
act  and  deed.  The  pessimism  that  attended  the  idea  has  been 
checked,  and  above  all  other  differences  between  the  relatively 
older  and  newer  schools  of  metaphysics  we  note  in  the  latter 
a  robust  confidence  which  has  imparted  its  generous  intima- 
tions to  the  latest  thinking.  The  universe  is  more  open  to- 
day to  spiritual  exploration  and  conquest  than  it  has  ever 
been  in  the  history  of  thought.  The  fertilizations  of  philo- 
sophical systems,  released  from  a  sterile  bondage  to  material 
phenomena,  and  the  advantages  of  a  new  learning  which  in- 
cludes the  vital  elements  of  theology  and  religion  are  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  the  preacher  and  should  fructify  his  message. 

This  message,  however,  he  will  not  apply  wisely  and  well 
unless  he  observes  world-movements,  keeps  an  eye  on  the  ad- 
vance of  the  sciences,  hearkens  to  the  voices  of  current  litera- 
ture and  maintains  contact  with  the  best  minds  of  his  time. 
These  minds  are  often  found  in  latitudes  with  which  inflexi- 
ble systems  of  theological  education  have  made  no  reckoning. 
Here  such  systems  lack  prescience;  since  what  the  historical 
critic  and  the  inductive  thinker  have  to  say,  or  profess  to 
have  achieved,  is  an  open  field  for  preachers.  You  are  not 
to  appropriate  their  results  arbitrarily,  accepting  those  which 
suit  your  immediate  purpose  and  rejecting  the  rest  regardless 
of  their  merits,  but  should  judge  them  logically  and  as  a  whole, 
with  the  love  for  truth  which  can  always  defend  its  own. 

The  appeal  from  the  sophistries  of  a  subverted  rationalism 
to  the  hitherto  baffling  elements  of  life  itself  has  been  taken 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     181 

by  the  two  most  prominent  philosophers  of  our  time, — Henri 
Bergson  and  Rudolf  Eucken.  Both  thinkers  are  alike  in 
their  aim  to  construe  the  universe  in  spiritual  terms,  though 
they  differ  in  their  methods.  Professor  Bergson,  by  race  a 
Hebrew,  by  birth  and  training  a  Frenchman,  educated  in 
Paris,  a  teacher  in  the  schools  and  universities  of  his  native 
land,  displays  the  characteristics  of  his  origin  and  environ- 
ment. Since  1900  he  has  been  a  professor  at  the  College  de 
France  and  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Institute  the  next 
year.  He  is  to  be  carefully  read,  not  only  for  his  matter, 
but  for  his  style,  which  is  lucid  and  symphonic  beyond  that 
of  any  other  modern  philosopher.  If  Huxley  gave  to  scien- 
tific treatises  the  charms  of  literature,  Bergson  has  done  a 
similar  service  for  metaphysics.  Indeed,  his  genius  for  ex- 
pression is  at  times  seductive  of  his  thought  and  embarrassing 
to  the  flow  of  his  argument.  Yet  the  artist  and  the  poet  in 
his  make-up  are  in  the  main  most  helpful  and  enable  him  to 
elucidate  a  series  of  principles  which  entitle  him  to  the  highest 
regard  as  a  scientific  thinker.  This  he  was  practically  bound 
to  be,  since  he  is  of  the  Darwinian  school,  and  his  theories 
are  based  in  spirit  and  substance  upon  its  teachings.  Had 
evolution  not  monopolized  methods,  Bergson 's  system  could 
not  have  been  developed.  Its  gist,  given  in  his  own  words,  is 
that  "Evolution  creates,  as  it  goes  on,  not  only  the  forms  of 
life,  but  the  ideas  that  will  enable  the  intellect  to  understand 
it,  the  terms  which  will  serve  to  express  it.  That  is  to  say 
that  its  future  overflows  its  present,  and  cannot  be  sketched 
out  therein  in  an  idea, ' '  ^  He  is  not  content  simply  to  reject 
every  form  of  determinism,  but  proceeds  to  make  freedom  the 
corner-stone  of  his  system  and  argues  that  while  science  and 
its  results  may  be  sympathetically  appreciated,  it  is  living 
insight  and  its  intuitions  which  reveal  ultimate  truth.  This 
thesis  he  terms  vitalism,  and  expounds  it  with  a  wealth  of 
arresting  illustration.  He  does  not  handle  old  problems  of 
philosophy  so  much  as  he  re-shapes  the  problem  of  philosophy 
itself.  His  methods  are  entirely  constructive ;  he  has  sighted 
»  Creative  Evolution,  p.  108. 


182  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

a  new  goal:  the  task  of  thinkers  is  no  longer  the  dismember- 
ment and  reassembling  of  a  mechanical  universe,  predeter- 
mined in  its  operations  by  the  nature  of  the  machine ;  it  is  the 
adventurous  pursuit  of  life :  full,  free,  perpetual  and  creative 
life,  incessantly  experimenting  in  new  regions.  This  is  the 
ultimate  reality,  the  rationale  of  which  is  in  itself.  To  know 
life  is  to  know  the  supreme  thing,  the  all  and  in  all.  Realists 
who  find  the  explanation  of  the  universe  in  space  and  matter 
and  Idealists  who  contend  that  the  problems  of  knowledge 
are  within  ourselves  are  thus  set  aside  by  Bergson.  He  main- 
tains that  matter  is  the  product  of  motion  and  that  motion 
is  a  mode  of  life;  that  consciousness,  which  is  one  with  life, 
is  its  directive  force,  vital  impulse,  supernal  urge,  and  life 
alone  is  conceived  of  as  all-pervading  and  supreme.  In  the 
lowlier  organisms  it  moves  as  instinct;  in  the  more  highly 
endowed  it  comes  nearer  to  reason ;  in  rational  beings  it  issues 
in  intellect,  which  in  turn  leads  to  the  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical knowledge  of  the  human  race.  But  its  creative  con- 
sciousness is  most  fully  expressed  in  intuition,  which  has  a 
deeper,  wider,  higher  range  than  intellect.  Because  of  its 
origin  as  "an  appendage  of  the  faculty  of  acting,"  the  in- 
tellect is  necessarily  incapable,  according  to  Bergson,  of  ap- 
prehending the  true  nature  of  life,  the  full  meaning  of  the 
evolutionary  movement.  "Created  by  life  in  definite  cir- 
cumstances to  act  on  definite  things,  how  can  it  embrace  life 
of  which  it  is  only  an  emanation  or  an  aspect?  ...  As  well 
contend  that  the  part  is  equal  to  the  whole,  that  the  effect 
can  re-absorb  the  cause."*  Bergson  defines  intuition  as  "the 
kind  of  intellectual  sympathy  by  which  one  places  one's  self 
within  an  object  in  order  to  coincide  with  what  is  unique  in 
it  and  consequently  inexpressible. ' '  °  Through  intuition  alone 
man  "attains  to  fluid  concepts  capable  of  following  reality 
in  all  its  sinuosities  and  of  adopting  the  very  movement  of 
the  inward  life  of  things. ' ' "     Thus  we  gain  access  to  the  su- 

■*  Creative  Evolution,  pp.  ix-x. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  6. 

6  Introduction  to  Metaphysics,  p.  59. 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  183 

perior  realms  of  the  soul  and  the  spirit,  discover  new  truth 
and  come  into  touch  with  reality.  It  should  be  noted  that 
in  this  manifold  process  indivisibility  and  continuity  persist 
as  the  evidences  of  an  all  dominating  life-consciousness,  which 
is  the  common  source  and  directive  power  alike  of  instinct, 
intellect  and  intuition.  Creative  Evolution  is  thus  based  upon 
the  hypothesis  that  the  current  of  life  traverses  the  bodies  it 
successively  organizes,  and  divides  itself  as  one  mighty  river 
among  its  multitudinous  products,  without  losing  either  vol- 
ume or  force.  While  Immanence  is  one  of  Bergson's  con- 
trolling conceptions,  perhaps  when  closely  analyzed  his  sole 
idea,  it  does  not  transcend  nature.  Life  and  the  All  are 
synonymous;  yet  life  is  not  pantheistic,  for  Pantheism  would 
identify  it  with  the  All.  The  brilliant  Frenchman  does  not 
convey  in  his  philosophy  any  definite  conclusions  as  to  person- 
ality, whether  human  or  Divine.  As  late  as  1912,  comment- 
ing upon  this  he  says:  ''The  considerations  set  forth  in 
L' Evolution  Creatrice  exhibit  creation  as  a  fact.  From  all 
this  emerges  clearly  the  idea  of  a  God,  Creator  and  free, 
the  generator  of  both  matter  and  life,  whose  work  of  creation 
is  continued  ...  by  the  evolution  of  species  and  the  build- 
ing up  of  human  personalities.  From  all  this  emerges,  con- 
sequently, a  refutation  of  monism  and  pantheism  in  general. 
But  before  these  conclusions  can  be  set  out  with  greater  pre- 
cision, or  considered  at  greater  length,  certain  problems  of 
another  kind  would  have  to  be  attacked."  Professor  Foster 
thinks  that  Bergson  will  eventually  identify  the  creative  im- 
pulse directly  with  God,  but  at  present  his  philosophy,  as  a 
system,  has  little  or  no  theological  character,  although  it  con- 
tains fascinating  viewpoints  for  theologians  who  find  in  the 
creative  impulse  a  fresh  method  of  interpreting  Divine  Im- 
manence. Certainly  if  the  "elan  vital"  is  as  vital  as  ever, 
atoms  have  lost  their  chance,  and  upon  spiritualized  being 
depends  the  future  progress  of  the  world.  Life,  as  Bergson 
sees  it,  is  the  continuation  of  an  infinite  past  in  the  living 
present.  His  view  of  the  Time  element  fortifies  the  vital 
factor  in  religious  persuasion,  that  now  is  the  accepted  time. 


184  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

now  the  day  of  salvation.  Everything  is  in  flux ;  nothing  is 
ready  made;  the  psychological,  not  the  mechanical  nor  the 
finalist  view  of  creation,  is  the  one  solvent  of  its  phenomena. 

These  scanty  references  but  hint  at  the  breadth  and  beauty 
of  an  idealistic  metaphysic  which  has  received  wide  and  seri- 
ous consideration.  Although  it  has  not  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing from  the  natural  sciences  on  which  it  rests  a  foundation 
sufficiently  strong  to  support  all  its  reasonings,  nevertheless, 
its  affirmations  are  a  proper  protest  against  the  over-intel- 
lectualization  of  life,  and  one  made  in  behalf  of  spiritual 
intuitionalism.  An  inclusive  unification,  such  as  Bergson  at- 
tempts, is  perhaps  impossible  in  metaphysics,  and  we  do  not 
have  to  endorse  the  whole  of  his  famous  experiment  in 
philosophy  to  recognize  the  vitality  of  much  of  its  content, 
which  his  later  writings  and  the  fires  of  criticism  will  doubt- 
less amend  and  purify.  For  the  present  it  is  sufficient  to 
know  that  he  has  summoned  us  from  a  profitless  naturalistic 
thinking  to  the  contemplation  of  life  and  its  realities  as  a 
whole.  Either  spirit  is  the  supreme  Sact,  supreme  over  all 
changes  of  process  and  lasting  through  them  all,  or  life  is  to 
be  defined  as  a  mechanical  process  suffering  from  the  illusion 
that  it  is  not  mechanical.  The  mechanical  explanation  of  the 
universe  might  be  feasible  if  it  were  not  that  we  poor  ma- 
chines are  capable  of  conceiving  higher  and  more  satisfying 
explanations.  For  which  reason  men  will  continue  to  believe 
in  a  spiritual  life,  will  indeed  believe  in  it  more  and  more 
with  every  increase  of  consciousness.'^ 

Rudolf  Eucken  was  born  at  Aurich  in  East  Friesland  on 

7  Few  philosophers,  not  themselves  originators  of  new  systems,  have 
rendered  as  much  service  to  philosophy  as  Professor  H.  Wildon  Carr 
of  the  University  of  London.  He  has  done  for  Bergson,  with  conspicu- 
ous ability,  what  John  Fiske  did  for  Herbert  Spencer,  and  Hutchinson 
Sterling  for  Hegel;  distilling  into  one  compact  and  readable  volume 
the  essence  of  a  teaching  diffused  by  the  primary  author  through 
numerous  books.  The  most  notable  of  Professor  Carr's  efforts  in  sum- 
ming up  the  Bergsonian  philosophy  is  contained  in  an  inaugural  ad- 
dressed delivered  by  him  before  King's  College  in  the  University  of 
London  on  May  16,  1918,  under  the  title:  "The  New  Idealist  Move- 
ment in  Philosophy." 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  185 

January  5tli,  1846,  and  has  taught  for  many  years  at  the 
University  of  Jena,  where  Schiller,  Fichte,  Schelling  and 
Hegel  were  his  predecessors  in  the  paling  days  of  the  earlier 
idealistic  movement.  Weimar,  with  its  memories  of  Goethe 
and  his  group,  is  in  the  same  locality.  Eucken  shows  the 
influence  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Plotinus,  Kant  and  Hegel,  and 
his  doctrine  represents  a  type  of  romantic  idealism  intent, 
like  that  of  Bergson's,  on  the  spiritualization  of  the  universe. 
Regard  for  learning  and  reverence  for  religion  are  manifested 
throughout  his  voluminous  writings,  which  open  up  new  vistas 
penetrating  far  beyond  the  closed-in  altitudes  of  crude  em- 
piricism. The  problem  he  essays  to  solve  is  the  reality  of 
the  universe  as  the  eternal  fundamental  which  exists  amid 
the  diversity  of  things  past  and  present.  He  is  not  so  much 
concerned  with  the  world  of  matter  or  with  theories  of 
knowledge  as  with  life,  which  is  infinitely  greater  than  mind 
and  far  more  important  than  anything  else  conceivable.  His 
style  has  no  such  precision,  skill  and  grace  as  that  of  Bergson ; 
indeed,  at  intervals  he  is  more  verbose  than  profound;  but 
he  shares  the  conviction  of  his  contemporary  that  philoso- 
phers have  hitherto  reasoned  within  a  circle  and  neglected 
the  concrete  and  practical  experiences  of  mankind.  In  his 
view,  philosophy  must  have  as  its  main  purpose  the  infusion 
of  the  practical  concerns  and  problems  of  life  with  a  vital 
religious  inspiration.  To  find  the  basis  and  the  meaning  of 
life ;  to  stress  the  significance  of  human  personality  and  free- 
dom; to  read  the  riddle  of  existence  in  order  that  it  may  be 
made  not  only  tolerable  but  congenial, — these  are  the  aims 
of  Eucken.  He  discusses  in  a  thorough  and  sympathetic  way 
the  various  solutions  already  offered  and  asserts  that  before 
any  solution  can  be  regarded  as  satisfactory  it  must  fulfil 
certain  given  conditions.  No  true  idea  of  life  can  be  obtained 
until  human  freedom  is  conceded,  for  without  this  concession 
moral  being  is  impossible.  Sordid  motives  are  as  repugnant 
to  him  as  deterministic  notions;  skepticism  and  agnosticism 
are  ruled  out  entirely.  Religion,  Iramanental  Idealism,  Natu- 
ralism, Socialism  and  Individualism  are  set  forth  at  length. 


186  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

The  first  two  have  tended,  in  Eueken's  judgment,  to  empha- 
size the  invisible  as  the  reality,  while  the  remaining  three 
have  largely  excluded  it.  Naturalism  is  repudiated;  Social- 
ism is  found  wanting,  because  it  concerns  itself  exclusively 
with  external  conditions  and  has  no  soul;  Individualism  is 
regarded  as  insufficient,  since  it  confines  man  to  his  inner 
resources.  Idealism,  although  giving  life  a  more  enduring 
basis,  does  not  relate  it  to  a  separate  and  superior  world 
beyond  our  own.  Despite  the  great  achievements  to  its 
credit,  religion  in  its  traditional  forms  is  a  question  rather 
than  an  answer;  "itself  too  much  of  a  problem  to  interpret 
the  meaning  of  life  and  make  us  feel  that  it  is  worth  living. ' ' 
Eucken  concludes  that  current  Christianity  cannot  solve  the 
difficulties  of  present  human  experience.  He  is,  however,  a 
profound  believer  in  religion,  which  he  contends  will  yet 
assume  new  dimensions  and  take  its  place  as  the  regal  fact 
of  life,  wielding  a  greater  power  than  ever  before. 

Evidently  the  probe  must  go  deeper  into  the  eternal  mys- 
tery. Having  set  aside  previous  attempts  to  unfold  its  secret, 
Eucken  proceeds  to  make  truth  a  matter  of  life  and  action 
rather  than  of  mere  intellect.  He  yields  somewhat  here  to 
Pragmatism,  which  contends  that  the  test  of  truth  is  its  value 
for  life.  Yet  he  does  not  claim  to  be  a  Pragmatist,  neither 
is  he  an  Empiricist  nor  an  Experimentalist.  For  him  truth 
is  truth,  independently  of  knowledge  or  experience,  and  can 
never  be  solely  a  matter  of  human  judgment  or  decision.  It 
is  gained  by  intuition  through  a  life  of  action.  Accordingly, 
he  adopts  the  position  called  Activism,  which  has  the  transcen- 
dental traits  of  Kant,  with  a  modern  application  and  stress. 
As  a  historian,  it  is  natural  that  Eucken  should  emphasize 
the  outstanding  personalities  which  embody  the  greatest  pos- 
sibilities of  life  in  every  field  of  human  endeavor.  The 
persistency  with  which  the  Eternal  revealed  itself  in  these 
personalities,  notwithstanding  the  numberless  varieties  of  tem- 
porary and  even  wrong  expressions,  deeply  impresses  Eucken 
while  he  lives  among  the  great  ones  and  delves  into  their  past. 
They  demonstrate  beyond  contradiction  what  he  terms  the  uni- 


PRESENT  DAT  INTELLECTUALISM     187 

versal  spiritual  life.  For  though  divided  by  centuries  and 
race  from  one  another,  nevertheless  in  their  moral  ideas  are 
certain  identities  which  clearly  point  to  a  deeper  basis  for 
life  than  human  existence  at  any  particular  period  of  time. 
This  constant  recurrence  in  history  of  a  persistent  Something, 
reasserting  itself  throughout  successive  generations  of  man- 
kind, is  for  him  the  animating  soul  of  the  Universe :  the  eter- 
nal, independent,  universal  spiritual  life;  and  upon  its 
foundation  he  proceeds  to  build  the  fabric  of  his  constructive 
and  prophetic  work,  which  may  be  briefly  summarized  as 
follows: — Man  belongs  to  two  worlds,  the  material  and  the 
spiritual.  While  the  material  world  is  the  crown  of  natural 
evolution,  it  represents  only  a  past  cycle  in  the  development 
of  a  far-reaching  design.  A  greater  cycle  is  now  before  us, 
in  which  the  universe  is  to  pass  to  the  spiritual  plane  of  being. 
In  most  people  there  are  intimations,  faint  or  strong,  of  this 
divine  estate;  inward  strivings  after  a  higher  life,  revolts 
against  the  lower  self.  It  is  usually  in  such  moments  that 
the  awakened  soul  glimpses  the  reality  and  listens  to  the  claims 
of  the  spiritual  world.  If  the  response  be  adequate  and 
sustained,  a  regenerating  experience  ensues,  freeing  the  soul 
from  the  thraldom  of  its  baser  self  and  enabling  it  to  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit  where  alone  it  can  realize  its 
true  being. 

The  originality,  fecundity  and  imaginative  grasp  with  which 
Eucken  sustains  and  enforces  his  principal  theme  are  worthy 
of  its  significance.  He  dwells  upon  the  metaphysic  of  life  and 
of  reality  as  an  entirety,  separating  it  from  the  metaphysic 
of  the  schools.  The  recognition  of  the  deeper,  truer  exist- 
ence, which  is  one,  in  spite  of  complexities;  the  conviction 
that  all  sincere  thought  contains,  at  least  indirectly,  some 
contribution  to  truth;  the  insistence  upon  an  awakening  of 
the  duality  within  us;  the  turning  away  from  and  against 
self ;  the  spacious  conception  of  the  two  interdependent  stages 
of  religion,  with  "Universal  Religion"  demanding  what 
"Characteristic  Religion"  supplies;  and  the  lofty  tribute  to 
Christianity  as  the  highest  expression  of  "Characteristic  Re- 


188  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ligion"  are  outstanding  features  that  give  to  Eucken's  phi- 
losophy an  unusual  distinction  which  Christian  thinkers 
rightly  appreciate.  But  although  he  regards  Christianity  as 
immeasurably  superior  to  all  other  Faiths  and,  when  stripped 
of  its  hampering  accretions,  as  possibly  the  final  and  absolute 
religion,  some  of  his  criticisms  and  suggested  amendments  are 
so  drastic,  indeed  destructive,  that  their  acceptance  would 
result  not  in  the  rejuvenation  of  the  New  Testament  Evangel 
but  very  positively  in  its  evisceration.  The  historic  contents 
of  the  Gospel  cannot  be  subjected  to  a  priori  conceptions  even 
of  so  superior  a  mind  as  Eucken's,  for,  while  philosophies  rise 
and  fall,  those  realities  continue  to  evince  a  vitality  which 
outlives  the  speculations  of  the  thinker  and  they  carry  on  the 
saving  work  of  Christianity  in  the  world.  Of  Eucken  it  may 
be  said,  as  of  many  another  for  whose  helpful  contributions 
we  should  be  truly  grateful,  that  one  must  gladly  take  his 
gold  and  reject  his  dross. 

Unsophisticated  people,  who  hold  that  beliefs  of  any  sort 
must  be  judged  by  their  practical  effects,  incline  toward  the 
implications  of  Pragmatism  as  espoused  by  the  late  Professor 
William  James  of  Harvard  and  Professor  Schiller  of  Oxford. 
Pragmatism  is  primarily  a  method  rather  than  a  philosophy, 
deriving  its  outline  from  the  Scotch  metaphysicians.  As  its 
name  suggests,  it  finds  the  test  of  truth  and  goodness  in  actual 
practice.  The  overweening  confidence  of  rationalists  and 
idealists  in  their  views,  which  were  often  individualistic  and 
temperamental,  evoked  the  opposition  of  what  its  adherents 
term  the  judgment  of  common  sense,  a  phrase  which  indicates 
the  collective  sagacity  of  mankind.  It  has  been  pertinently 
said  that  it  is  a  superhuman  task  to  tabulate  and  criticize, 
in  the  light  of  history  and  experience,  the  postulates  of  all 
human  knowledge.  Final  night  closes  in  upon  the  thinker 
before  his  work  has  well  begun.  Therefore,  to  seize  the  in- 
tellectual arms  and  equipment  already  provided  for  the  fray, 
and  to  demonstrate  their  value  on  the  field,  is  the  obviously 
wise  policy  for  mortal  creatures.  Yet  it  is  no  more  than  a 
policy,  and  is  not  without  its  drawbacks.     The  verj'  simplicity 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     189 

of  this  standard  of  values,  while  applicable  to  a  degree,  is  too 
closely  akin  to  compromise  to  be  the  determinative  of  truth. 
Pragmatism  may  feel  "its  heart  to  be  in  the  right  place 
philosophically,"  but  this  is  scarcely  a  sufficient  preparation 
for  philosophical  enterprises.  It  lays  itself  open  to  the  risks 
of  unregulated  emotionalism,  the  abuses  of  which  have  dimmed 
"the  perspectives  of  the  several  worlds"  and  fallen  short 
of  that  love  for  reality  which  is  the  finest  characteristic 
of  the  preacher,  and  the  one  always  to  be  trusted  by  the 
human  mind.  We  can  admire  the  efforts  of  Pragmatism  to 
upraise  and  amplify  the  popular  esteem  for  reflective  think- 
ing, and  to  direct  it  to  the  unfailing  sources  of  better  life 
and  conduct.  But  its  disparagement  of  other  systems  and 
its  light  respect  for  some  of  the  more  strenuous  obligations 
which  are  laid  upon  them,  militate  against  its  usefulness. 
Notwithstanding  its  attractive  prospectus,  especially  to  the 
advocate  of  things  which,  though  invisible,  are  nine-tenths 
of  existence,  it  should  be  treated  with  reserve  and  used  within 
limitations. 

Another  quality  which  no  age  altogether  escapes,  and  which 
austerer  minds  frequently  display,  is  the  pessimism  which 
has  deeply  infected  some  phases  of  modern  life.  This  may  be 
observed  in  those  dissentients  from  Christianity  who  unani- 
mously object  to  the  ways  it  has  taken,  but  are  incapable  of 
offering  any  better  direction.  Strindberg  shrieks  out  the 
agonies  of  his  discordant  being ;  Nietzsche  commends  with  re- 
pellent frankness  an  elementary  and  undisguised  egoism; 
Maeterlinck  suggests  the  quieting  of  unruly  passions  by  a 
profounder  reverence  for  the  inner  consciousness;  Tolstoi 
(to  whom  not  a  few  preachers  have  given  more  publicity  than 
to  saints  and  teachers  of  their  own  household)  is  quite  definite 
in  urging  Christianity  upon  us  as  a  system  of  poverty  and 
communism.  They  all  practically  agree  with  James  Mill 
that  life  is  a  poor  thing  at  best,  and  at  the  worst  a  tragedy 
of  which  Prometheus  is  the  personification.  One  writer  of 
this  dismal  band  gravely  informs  us  that  Thomas  Hardy, 
England's  last  literary  Titan,  carries  the  race  to  a  terrible 


190  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

height,  where  irony  is  revealed  as  its  law  and  humanity 
seems  less  than  nothing.  Bertrand  Russell  in  his  volume 
Mysticism  and  Logic,  remarkable  alike  for  its  noble  and  mov- 
ing prose  and  for  its  stoical  attitude,  declares:  "Brief  and 
powerless  is  Man's  life;  on  him  and  all  his  race  the  slow, 
sure  doom  falls  pitiless  and  dark.  Blind  to  good  and  evil, 
reckless  of  destruction,  omnipotent  matter  rolls  on  its  relent- 
less way;  for  Man,  condemned  to-day  to  lose  his  dearest,  to- 
morrow himself  to  pass  through  the  gates  of  darkness,  it 
remains  only  to  cherish,  ere  yet  the  blow  falls,  the  lofty 
thoughts  that  ennoble  his  little  day;  disdaining  the  coward 
terrors  of  the  slave  of  Fate,  to  worship  at  the  shrine  that  his 
own  hands  have  built;  undismayed  by  the  empire  of  chance, 
to  preserve  a  mind  free  from  the  wanton  tyranny  that  rules 
his  outward  life;  proudly  defiant  of  the  irresistible  forces 
that  tolerate,  for  a  moment,  his  knowledge  and  his  condemna- 
tion, to  sustain  alone,  a  weary  but  unyielding  Atlas,  the 
world  that  his  own  ideals  have  fashioned  despite  the  trampling 
march  of  unconscious  power. ' '  *  This  is  the  lone  cry  of  a 
heroical  heart  that  has  wandered  far  from  the  central  au- 
thority and  peace  the  Christian  knows.  Viscount  Morley, 
a  far  weightier  character  than  Russell,  is  hardly  less  depress- 
ing. No  man  was  ever  more  disinterested,  more  unselfish, 
more  truly  the  soul  of  honor  or  the  servant  of  his  fellow  men, 
with  that  fidelity  in  public  duty  which  is  with  him  instinctive, 
than  the  biographer  of  Gladstone.  Yet  in  the  last  chapter 
of  Morley 's  Recollections  he  quotes  a  line  from  Tennyson, 
which  seems  to  him  to  be  the  apt  image  for  a  creature's 
epilogue : 

"Ck)ld  upon  the  dead  volcano  sleeps  the  gleam  of  dying  day," 

The  worn  veteran  finds  no  enchantment  of  restrospect  in 

his  musings  on  a  Surrey  upland  at  the  hour  which  lent 

its  first  line  to  Gray's  Elegy;  the  hour  "when  they  who  sail 

the  seas  hear  the  evening  bell  afar,  and  are  pierced  with 

8  Pp.  56-7. 


PKESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     191 

yearning  in  their  hearts  at  the  thought  of  the  tender  friends 
from  whom  they  had  been  that  morning  torn  away."  He 
questions  whether  a  man's  life  has  been  anything  better  than 
the  crossing  of  a  rough  and  swollen  stream  on  slippery  step- 
ping-stones, instead  of  a  steady  march  on  the  granite  road. 
He  seems  to  favor  the  views  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  was  not 
sure  what  the  recurrent  motions  of  the  universe  were,  en- 
tanglement, confusion,  dispersion  or  unity,  order,  providence, 
a  well  arranged  cosmos,  or  a  tumultuous  chaos.  He  is  also 
uncertain  whether  the  Darwins,  Spencers,  Kenans,  who  held 
the  civilized  world  in  the  hollow  of  their  hand  for  two  long 
generations  past,  have  perchance  wielded  a  more  potent  sway 
than  the  Gospel  of  the  various  churches.  With  a  pathetic 
Circumspice  the  curtain  falls  on  one  of  the  most  influential 
lives  of  our  time,  while  for  Morley  the  race  is  left  to  the 
mercy  of  materialistic  decadents  and  lying  diplomatists  who 
have  plunged  it  into  a  witches'  Sabbath  of  blood. 

Other  thinkers  of  less  note,  intoxicated  with  suffering  or 
influenced  by  a  darker  hue  of  feeling  which  they  mistake  for 
suffering,  cannot  look  soberly  at  life.  To  see  it  aright,  they 
assure  us,  is  to  comprehend  and  to  repeat  the  Vanitas  Vani- 
tatum  of  the  ages  over  the  present  scene  of  ruin  and  desola- 
tion. Such  saddening  confessions  remind  us  that,  great  as 
may  be  the  difficulties  of  belief,  those  of  unbelief  are  much 
greater,  and  that  they  obstruct  the  moral  conquests  which  are 
the  prize  of  courage.  To  inspire  men  and  women  to  attempt 
these  conquests  is  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  the  pulpit. 
Preachers  understand  that  it  has  ever  been  essential  to  every 
kind  of  progress  that  men  should  grapple  boldly  with  their 
adverse  fate.  But  these  pessimistic  spirits  look  for  an  in- 
most relation  of  things  in  some  rare,  remote,  emotional  state 
which  wavers  between  science  and  sentimentalism  and  is  un- 
known to  the  rest  of  mankind.  They  have  little  definite 
to  offer  except  despair,  blank  nothingness,  extinction.  The 
echoes  of  their  lamentations  are  sometimes  audible  in  the 
words  of  millennial  prophets  who  dismiss  the  earth  to  doom 


192  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

to  make  room  for  their  theoretical  paradise.  Flowers  will 
bloom  on  icebergs  before  men  distil  moral  hardihood  and 
determination  out  of  these  errant  speculations. 

It  is  with  a  sigh  of  relief  that  we  turn  from  them  to  the 
intrepid  souls  who  do  not  allow  their  bitterest  experiences  to 
overcome  their  believing  hearts,  nor  unnecessarily  vex  them- 
selves about  the  divergencies  between  the  realms  of  sense  and 
spirit.  They  know  that  these  differences  have  been  exagger- 
ated, and,  further,  that  they  are  now  well  on  toward  the 
settlement  made  by  faith  and  not  by  doubt.  Still  less  do  they 
surrender  to  the  blandishments  of  the  quack  who  pledges 
them  a  fool-proof  universe,  nor  do  they  degrade  themselves 
by  consorting  with  the  devotees  of  sensual  pleasure.  Yet 
they  are  righteously  exercised  over  the  far-reaching  issues 
of  evil,  many  of  which  are  the  more  dreadful  because  they 
are  the  needless  creations  of  man 's  own  lusts.  They  ask  the 
preacher  why  such  misery  and  waste  should  recur  in  a  life 
that  mocks  them  with  its  fairest  prospects  and  is  so  full  of 
promise  but  so  scanty  of  fulfillment.  This  problem  of  prob- 
lems apparently  retreats  as  thinkers  advance,  and  perhaps  no 
generation  can  do  more  than  move  slowly  toward  its  final 
solution.  The  interpreter  of  sacred  truth  must  exert  himself 
to  show  tortured  humanity  those  higher  grounds  of  harmony 
which  are  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  Thirty  years  ago  Bishop 
"Westcott  of  Durham  felt  the  pressure  which  has  since  in- 
creasingly come  upon  us  all.  He  declared  that  we  could 
willingly  endure  the  delays,  the  failures,  the  sorrows  encom- 
passing us,  if  we  were  allowed,  even  from  afar,  to  recognize 
the  presence  of  Christus  Consummator.  There  have  been 
saints  who  have  caught  the  vision  of  the  enthroned  and  inter- 
ceding Son  of  God  vouchsafed  to  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews.  Their  ministry  has  invigorated  and  strength- 
ened the  Church  Universal,  by  giving  a  higher  visibility  to 
the  unity  of  faith  and  knowledge  which  is  assured  in  the 
sovereignty  of  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord.  It  is  your  privilege 
to  do  likewise  and  to  bring  to  those  who  sit  in  darkness  and 
in  the  shadow  of  death  the  Gospel  of  spiritual  illumination 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     193 

and  immortality,  made  your  own  during  hours  of  youthful 
trust  and  optimism,  that  it  may  fortify  your  hearers  during 
the  night  of  tragedy  and  woe. 

Ill 

There  is  a  prevailing  impression  to-day  that  the  pulpit 
should  be  more  sympathetic  in  its  treatment  of  the  intellectual 
side  of  religious  questions;  certainly  it  is  highly  necessary 
that  preachers  should  know  the  great  work  which  has  been 
done,  not  only  in  theology,  but  in  poetry,  metaphysics,  his- 
tory and  economics;  in  short,  everything  that  adds  strength 
and  luster  to  the  setting  of  righteousness.  Especially  should 
we  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  capital  intimations  of  the 
masters  who  rivet  thought  and  inspire  reflection.  Ministers, 
like  some  other  speakers,  would  imagine  less  if  they  knew 
more,  for  although  imagination  is  a  chief  servant  of  preach- 
ing it  is  often  a  bad  master,  inflicting  waywardness  and 
caprice  upon  enthusiasts  who  have  not  learned  the  distinction 
between  fact  and  fancy.  The  verdicts  of  a  trained  intellect, 
working  upon  a  well-founded  basis  of  ideas,  answer  the  ends 
of  the  sermon  far  more  successfully  than  flights  of  declama- 
tion. And  if  our  schools  of  the  prophets  are  to  have  any 
justification,  they  must  meet  the  requirements  mentioned  by 
training  men  apt  to  teach,  who  can  show  that  Christianity 
contains  abundant  matter  for  instruction  and  is  neither  a 
mere  intuition  nor  an  arbitrary  revelation.  It  has  in  it 
those  qualities  which  are  the  terra  firma  of  the  preacher; 
from  these  as  a  base  he  must  recast  his  sermonic  methods  to 
meet  the  shifting  ideas,  conditions  and  demands  of  life. 
The  minister  proficient  in  applied  religion  will  ward  off  in- 
credulity, sluggishness,  prepossession,  misguided  piety,  and 
will  apply  himself  to  the  tasks  of  resolute  thinking.  Re- 
luctance to  accept  and  state  the  assured  results  of  scholarly 
investigation  nullifies  the  effect  of  sermons  upon  the  informed 
hearer,  and  attempts  to  dissociate  preaching  from  the  reali- 
ties such  investigation  necessarily  involves,  in  order  that  a 


194  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

temporary  effect  may  be  heightened,  is  as  though  you  threw 
a  tub  to  a  whale.  No  audience  needs  it,  and  those  worth 
while  will  have  none  of  it.  They  quickly  detect  in  the 
preacher  the  deliberate  evasions  which  becloud  preaching, 
and  insist  that  the  Christian  message  must  be  founded,  not 
upon  the  loose  rubble  of  emotional  appeal  which  ministers, 
like  politicians,  are  especially  tempted  to  use,  but  upon  the 
solid  facts  which  show  your  reverence  for  the  ethics  of  the  in- 
tellect. Veil  nothing  in  a  false  reticence ;  beware  of  the  casu- 
istries which  conceal  essentials.  They  are  both  immoral  and 
stupid,  and  will  never  be  practiced  by  preachers  who,  living 
by  faith  and  not  by  prejudice,  dare  gaze  on  the  naked  splendor 
of  verity.  That  worst  of  heresies,  fear  for  truth,  does  not 
corrupt  their  utterance.  They  live  and  speak  in  confidence 
and  love  of  truth,  with  the  language  of  a  lover,  candid,  full, 
explicit,  and  guard  against  giving  the  fatal  impression  that 
they  have  no  sufficient  tenderness  of  conscience  toward  facts 
if  these  interfere  with  their  idealizations.  The  unhappy  ex- 
ample of  not  a  few  divines  who  suppress  facts  or  openly  de- 
nounce their  proclamation  by  others,  and  who  show  by  their 
taste  for  vituperation  that  it  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon, 
has  wrought  incalculable  injury  to  our  calling.  Strong  in 
their  antipathies,  large  in  their  self-esteem  and  their  exactions, 
their  pitiful  harangues  and  blustering  extravagances  have 
humiliated  preaching  and  brought  reproach  upon  the  Church. 
If,  then,  we  would  counteract  doubts,  disarm  repugnance 
and  find  a  fresh  approach  to  the  one  Gospel  for  the  modern 
mind,  let  us  sustain  the  intellectual  honor  of  the  pulpit,  fix- 
ing all  sincere  hearts  upon  it  and  silencing  the  frequent  taunt 
that  it  plaj^s  fast  and  loose  with  the  results  of  learning.  Its 
morale  is  maintained  by  the  purification  of  scholarly  wisdom ; 
by  that  breadth  of  nature  which  does  not  despise  culture  for 
the  sake  of  religion  any  more  than  it  sets  aside  religion  for 
the  sake  of  culture.  And  if  you  ask  that  culture  be  defined, 
since  the  term  connotes  to  many  only  the  ornamental  as 
against  the  practical  in  mental  equipment — surely  the  answer 


PRESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  195 

is  that  those  ministers  are  truly  cultured  whose  knowledge 
and  interests  give  them  an  intelligent  intercourse  with  the 
wider  interests  of  life.  The  laws  of  motion  and  of  radio- 
activity are  as  essentially  parts  of  culture  as  Murillo's  Im- 
maculate Conception  or  Montaigne's  Essays.  The  procession 
of  the  equinoxes  is  quite  as  profitable  as  the  history  of  The 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  the  latest  developments  of  sociological 
theories  are  fully  as  relevant  as  Futurist  painting.  Some  who 
insist  on  a  cultured  ministry  are  ignorant  of  the  implications 
of  a  term  which  perforce  keeps  pace  with  the  extension  of 
knowledge.  In  reading  the  sermons  and  apologetics  of  the 
Fathers,  the  Schoolmen  and  the  Reformers,  one  is  struck  with 
their  occasional  primitiveness.  Many  of  their  happiest  ideas, 
which  were  the  points  of  departure  for  overwhelming  ex- 
hortations that  thrilled  the  souls  of  their  hearers,  have  be- 
come the  merest  platitudes  for  our  generation.  We  speak 
to  a  world  upon  which  genius  has  lavished  untold  resources, 
a  world  which  has  not  only  the  enlightenment  but  the  so- 
phistication of  scholarship,  and  which,  after  hearing  all  the 
prophets  of  the  past  as  well  as  its  orators,  poets,  historians 
and  essayists,  still  vents  its  dissatisfaction  and  complains  that 
its  aspirations  are  stifled.  To  be  sure,  the  beaten  paths  which 
great  preachers  trod  are  ever  before  us,  and  we  must  follow 
them  as  they  followed  their  Lord,  though  with  unequal  steps. 
But  if  you  who  enter  those  paths  later  than  some  of  us  would 
adorn  them  with  interpretations  of  the  Gospel  which  appeal 
to  your  day,  you  must  conquer  much  that  seems  foreign  to 
the  intention.  Buried  monuments,  dead  languages,  ancient 
heresies,  non-Christian  religions,  obsolete  and  extant  philoso- 
phies, methods  of  textual  criticism  and  exegesis,  the  exhumed 
and  corrected  histories  of  the  Church  and  of  nations — all 
present  their  endless  stores  before  your  bewildered  gaze. 
How,  then,  is  the  student  to  discriminate  between  them  and 
select  what  he  needs?  Mainly  by  remembering  that  the 
minister's  true  culture  is  not  conceived  in  the  wits  but  in  the 
80ul.     It  is  a  part  of  that  life  which  you  live  as  the  servant 


196  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  your  Lord,  "in  Whom  are  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  hidden"  °  for  every  generation.  Your  relations 
with  culture  are  constant,  not  desultory ;  joyous,  not  grievous ; 
free,  not  forced.  And  whatever  in  your  research  brings 
honor  to  Christ  is  your  lawful  spoil.  Carlyle  avowed  that 
he  who  had  mastered  the  first  forty-seven  propositions  of 
Euclid  stood  nearer  to  God  than  he  did  before  that  achieve- 
ment. To  find  God  everywhere  and  enjoy  Him  most,  plod 
along  what  Sir  Thomas  Browne  described  as  "the  common 
road,  the  Appian  Way  of  knowledge."  Yet  journey  there  as 
freemen,  not  bondsmen ;  conscious  that  you  have  a  sacred 
merchandise  in  charge,  a  saving  message  for  mankind  to 
which  fuller  expression  must  be  given.  This  is  an  exertion 
distasteful  to  preachers  who  avoid  first-rate  causes  and  high 
duties  and  do  not  build  upon  the  firm  rock  of  the  thinker's 
acquirements.  They  have  usually  lost  their  strength,  if  not 
their  self-respect,  by  depending  upon  native  gifts  which 
sooner  or  later  wither  and  die  unless  replenished  by  the  in- 
cessant study  of  primary  truths.  Mr.  Asquith,  in  his  Rec- 
torial address  before  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  well  said 
that  "a  vast  deal  of  the  slipshod  and  prolix  stuff  which  we 
are  compelled  to  read  or  to  listen  to  is  born  of  sheer  idleness." 
He  went  on  to  point  out  that  the  aim  and  end  of  culture  is 
"to  be  open-minded;  to  struggle  against  preconceptions,  and 
hold  them  in  due  subjection;  to  keep  the  avenues  of  the  in- 
telligence free  and  unblocked;  to  take  pains  that  the  scales 
of  the  judgment  shall  be  always  even  and  fair;  to  welcome 
new  truths  when  they  have  proved  their  title,  despite  the 
havoc  they  make  of  old  and  cherished  beliefs — these  may  seem 
like  commonplace  qualities,  well  within  every  man's  reach, 
but  experience  shows  that  in  practice  they  are  the  rarest  of 
all."^°  Degeneracy  is  bound  to  follow  neglect  to  cultivate 
them  and  illustrates  the  aphorism  that,  while  eminent  posts 
make  thoughtful  men  greater,  they  make  indifferent  and  care- 
less men  less. 

9  ColoBsians  ii :  3. 

10  Occasional  Addresses,  pp.  92,  96. 


PEESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM     197 

Eepel  with  vigorous  determination  the  heedless  waste  of 
your  powers,  your  time,  your  opportunities;  the  obtrusion 
of  paltry  aims  and  motives;  the  cheap  solicitations  of  those 
who  bid  you  be  anxious  for  everything  except  the  one  thing 
needful,  and  who  act  toward  preachers  as  though  they  were 
the  flies  of  a  summer  noon.  The  concentration  of  Dante  in 
the  solitudes  of  Fonte  Avellana,  of  Cervantes  and  Bunyan 
in  their  dungeon  cells,  of  Hegel  buried  in  his  speculations 
amid  the  roar  of  battle,  is  a  possession  of  the  soul  in  exile,  im- 
prisonment and  storm,  which  we  envy  because  we  do  not  have 
it.  Granted  that  some  great  works  like  those  of  John  Stuart 
Mill  are  exceptional  in  this  respect,  since  they  were  produced 
amid  distracting  surroundings,  yet  they  are  no  safe  examples 
for  you  to  imitate.  The  comparative  tranquillity  required 
for  the  generation  of  ideas,  and  the  intervals  when  one  can 
turn  on  the  full  stream  of  his  thought,  excluding  whatever 
diverts  it,  are  too  frequently  denied  the  modem  preacher. 
Only  by  the  most  jealous  contrivance  and,  in  some  instances, 
at  the  risk  of  his  tenure,  can  he  secure  a  breathing  space 
for  the  consideration  of  truths  which  must  be  reborn  in  him 
if  they  are  to  shine  forth  through  his  utterances. 

This  deprivation  has  much  to  do  with  the  popular  impres- 
sion that  the  pulpit  can  no  longer  summon  superior  minds  to 
its  service.  Such  minds  are  not  abundant  in  any  depart- 
ment of  public  activity ;  and  the  idea  that,  as  a  result,  nations 
have  got  out  of  hand,  is  not  without  support.  Yet  if  it  be 
true  that  preaching  genius  is  less  common  than  formerly,  the 
fact  remains  that  it  can,  and  must,  be  grown  on  earth  before 
it  is  baptized  from  above.  As  the  foothills  of  the  Andes 
begin  hundreds  of  miles  from  their  summits,  so  the  outstand- 
ing preachers  of  any  period  are  borne  upward  to  their  emi- 
nence by  countless  ranks  of  less  known  but  equally  deserving 
brethren.  You  may  not  be  the  Beechers  or  the  Brooks  of 
to-morrow,  but  you  can  help  to  generate  the  conditions  which 
will  produce  them  for  the  future.  Had  there  been  no  love 
of  learning,  there  would  have  been  no  Renaissance;  apart 
from  the  thirst  for  the  living  God,  the  Reformation  would 


198  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

not  have  shattered  the  rock  of  Scholasticism.  The  aggregate 
of  qualities  mystically  infused,  which  men  call  genius,  is  not 
independent  of  its  environment ;  and  though  we  may  not  com- 
mand the  one,  we  may  mould  the  other,  so  that  after  our 
Elijahs,  the  Elishas  and  their  successors  shall  arise.  Be- 
sides, there  is  to-day,  if  not  a  personalized,  what  may  be 
termed  a  distributive  preaching  genius,  which  has  been  ad- 
vantageous for  the  far-flung  lines  it  has  to  defend.  It  speaks 
not  only  to  advanced  scholars  and  to  the  inveterately  skeptical, 
but  to  the  believing  and  to  the  unlettered  mind,  and  occupies 
in  social  and  religious  realms  extended  frontiers  of  compara- 
tively recent  origin.  Though  no  Church  discharges  its  duty 
to  God  or  to  man  which  does  not  furnish  an  intellectualism 
competent  to  deal  with  the  conflicts  that  disturb  spiritual 
faith,  it  is  still  more  derelict  when  it  neglects  the  troubled 
and  restless  multitudes  which  need  the  simple,  earnest  procla- 
mation of  the  message  of  Jesus.  While  critical  theologians 
and  commentators  abound,  cultured  and  evangelical  men  of 
the  type  of  Hugh  Price  Hughes,  whom  Dr.  Martineau  de- 
scribed as,  in  his  opinion,  the  best  preacher  of  the  Gospel 
to  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  are  few  and  far  between.  You 
increase  your  ministerial  efficiency  when  you  refuse  to  be  the 
Mr.  Bye-Ends  of  the  intellectual  world,  forever  wandering  off 
in  pursuit  of  the  latest  psychological  or  ethical  theories.  The 
knowledge  of  them  should  not  be  your  obsession,  and  the 
ambassador  of  God  who  allows  nothing  to  deflect  him  from 
the  conception  of  all  life  as  an  opening  for  the  Evangel  of 
the  New  Testament  has  rightly  determined  his  course. 

Before  him  appear  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  and 
women,  wearied  by  toil  and  broken  by  sorrow.  The  dis- 
tractions of  business  and  of  domestic  care,  the  grief  for  the 
absent  or  departed  loved  ones,  the  consciousness  of  sin,  the 
yearnings  for  a  better  self  and  the  peace  it  brings,  surge 
around  the  holy  spot  where  he  ministers.  He  has  to  renew 
his  people's  strength,  revive  their  hope,  ease  their  burdens, 
and  announce  to  the  penitent  and  obedient  the  pardon  of  the 
All  Merciful.    For  him,  as  for  them,  the  assurance  must  be 


PEESENT  DAY  INTELLECTUALISM  199 

ratified  that  the  God  Whom  they  seek,  and  Who  cannot  be 
found  in  an  intellectual  externalism,  is  nevertheless  present 
in  the  Spirit  to  help  and  heal.  Then  it  is  that  idealism  is 
created  by  forces  outside  itself,  and  the  supremacy  of  Christ 
over  all  ethical  schemes  is  verified  by  His  actual  production 
of  righteous  character  and  conduct.  The  crude  necessities 
of  human  economy  are  there  supplied  and  surpassed  by  the 
revelation  which  is  religious  as  well  as  reformative.  Where 
philosophy,  science  and  social  tendencies,  though  seeking  one 
end,  are  at  a  standstill,  the  Christian  preacher  should  prove 
himself  indispensable  by  advocating  the  great  adventures  of 
faith  and  love,  which  lead  to  the  new  humanity,  at  whose  sum- 
mit is  the  Christ  able  to  save  to  the  uttermost  both  man  and 
society. 

The  antagonisms  which  belong  to  the  intellectualism  of 
the  age  should  not  prevent  you  from  heralding  the  Evangel, 
which  presupposes  them  and  which  can  deal  more  successfully 
with  hostility  than  with  indifference.  The  skepticisms,  the 
social  problems,  the  eager  questionings  already  mentioned, 
are  'capable  of  reconciliation  as  well  as  of  division.  Men 
magnify  the  visible  universe,  or  fall  back  upon  the  moral 
sense,  or  denounce  social  wrongs,  not  because  they  are  irre- 
ligious but  because,  like  the  rest  of  us,  they  ask  for  spiritual 
certitude  and  growth  in  betterment.  Their  theories  are  some- 
times unreasonable,  their  affirmations  often  wrong.  To  deny 
these  is  a  duty,  but  to  impugn  their  motives  is  usually 
blamable.  The  idealism  and  virtue  they  contain  can  be  at- 
tached to  the  federal  Personality  of  Jesus.  Wherever  jus- 
tice, benevolence  and  goodness  are  found,  there  He  dwells 
and  gives  them  a  regal  hospitality.  His  universality  touches 
all  speculations  at  ascertainable  points,  disclosing,  even  in 
their  remotest  recesses,  the  stratum  of  the  soul,  and  showing 
that  its  infinitudes  are  of  God.  Perhaps  in  overcoming  op- 
position the  young  preacher,  more  particularly,  has  to  learn 
his  lesson  through  preliminary  failure.  Why  should  the 
human  drama,  with  its  prolonged  and  involved  processes  and 
innumerable  intricacies,  be  an  open  book  to  the  minister  or 


200  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

to  any  other  reader  of  its  pages,  who  scans  them  for  the  first 
time?  If  he  is  an  unsympathetic  man,  impatient  in  temper 
and  limited  in  vision,  he  will  forfeit  the  great  privilege  of 
harmonizing  their  apparent  contradictions  with  the  moral 
and  spiritual  education  of  his  generation.  But  if  he  ap- 
proaches them  resolved  to  make  the  best  possible  use  of  them 
in  the  interests  of  the  truths  he  experimentally  knows,  he 
achieves  lasting  results  for  the  Gospel.  It  is  more  commend- 
able to  do  this  well  than  to  direct  the  political  fortunes  of  a 
State,  or  to  win  the  bubble  of  short-lived  fame.  The  impres- 
sion of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  upon  the  lives  of  your  fellow  men, 
when  channelled  through  the  preacher's  consecration,  exceeds 
in  permanent  value  the  triumphs  of  intellectualism  in  works 
which  the  world  will  not  willingly  let  die.  Be  responsive 
then  to  the  times  you  serve,  admiring  in  them  whatever  is 
admirable  and  rejoicing  in  their  achievements  as  keenly  as 
you  mourn  over  their  shortcomings.  The  very  extension  of 
material  things  which  some  preachers  are  always  deploring 
but  erects  the  larger  house  a  regenerated  race  will  presently 
occupy.  Even  those  strange  epidemics  of  grotesque  or  frantic 
belief  that  occur  in  an  age  like  ours  are  not  without  their 
redeeming  features.  Better  the  zeal  of  the  Flagellants  than 
the  Black  Death  of  apathy.  Strong  faults  are  offset  by 
stronger  excellences,  and  tumid  vices  summon  forth  the  in- 
dignant virtues  they  challenge.  Here  lies  the  field  ripe  for 
the  sickle  of  the  reaper;  never  was  its  labor  more  arduous, 
and  never  more  attractive  than  to-day.  After  all,  the  physi- 
ognomy and  movement  of  the  world  and  its  salient  convictions 
and  contradictions  are  on  our  side,  and  I  rejoice  to  think 
that  the  central  powers  of  modern  intellectualism  will  eventu- 
ally be  turned  in  all  their  fulness  to  religious  reconstruction. 
The  static  will  give  way  to  the  dynamic  forces  for  which 
the  last  one  hundred  years,  deeply  considered,  have  been  a 
stem  nursery.  If  this  conviction  has  any  validity,  the  Faith 
will  resume  its  Pentecostal  sway  and  speak  once  more  to  all 
men  in  the  living  forms  of  their  own  thought  and  language. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  NATURE  AND  IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN 
MINISTRY 


"0  man  of  God  .  .  .  follow  after  righteousness,  godliness,  faith, 
love,  patience,  meekness.  Fight  the  good  fight  of  the  faith,  lay  hold 
on  the  Life  Eternal,  whereunto  thou  wast  called,  and  didst  confess 
the  good  confession  in  the  sight  of  many  witnesses.  I  charge  thee 
in  the  sight  of  God  .  .  .  and  of  Jesus  Christ  .  .  .  that  thou  keep 
the  commandment,  without  spot,  without  reproach." 

I  Timothy  vi :  11-14. 
"Ideals  can  never  be  completely  embodied  in  practice;   and  yet 
ideals  exist,  and  if  they  be  not  approximated  to  at  all,  the  whole 
matter  goes  to  wreck." 

Carlyle. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  NATURE  AND   IDEALS   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN   MINISTRY 

Opportunities  of  the  student — The  ministry  that  awaits  him — The 
ministerial  office — Sacerdotal  and  Puritan  conceptions — Some 
ideals  of  the  Protestant  ministry — Personal  character  and  piety 
— Vital  preaching — The  authoritative  message — Justification  of 
dogma — Pastoral  relations  and  duties. 

In  his  English  Humorists  Thackeray  enehantingly  portrays 
a  Protestant  clergyman 's  career,  and  declares  it  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  subject  for  a  modern  idyll.  The  parson  appears  on 
the  scene  like  Melchizedek,  as  priest  and  king  in  one  person, 
to  whom  it  is  given  to  guide  his  fellow  men  through  life,  to 
take  care  of  their  spiritual  destinies  and  to  guarantee  their 
hopes  of  a  happier  future.  "Imagine  such  a  man,"  he  ex- 
claims, "with  pure  human  sentiments,  elevated  above  the 
multitude  of  whom  one  cannot  expect  purity;  give  him  the 
learning  necessary  for  his  office,  as  well  as  a  cheerful,  equable 
activity,  which  is  even  passionate  as  it  neglects  no  opportunity 
to  do  good;  and  you  will  have  him  well  endowed!"  The 
great  Victorian  was  here  making  his  own  replica  of  The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  the  outlines  of  which  can  be  matched  by 
many  ministers  whom  we  have  known  as  exemplary  artisans 
of  God.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Goethe  in  his  autobiography 
confessed  a  deep  indebtedness  to  Goldsmith's  favorite  crea- 
tion, which  in  a  decisive  hour  became  for  the  great  Humanist 
of  Weimar  a  guiding  light.  Who  among  us  acquainted  with 
the  good  vicar,  so  amiable,  yet  so  resolute  and  virtuous  withal, 
has  not  felt  a  similar  impulse  ? 

One  finds  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  overestimate  the  joy 
of  the  golden  hours  you  will  devote  to  diligent  study  and  the 
acquirement  of  Christian  culture.    Do  not  allow  them  to  be 

203 


204  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

filched  away  by  lesser  interests,  nor  permit  yourselves  to  be 
taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Sculptor  who  fashions  His 
chosen  servants  and  prepares  them  for  their  work.  Youth, 
like  Spring,  may  sometimes  be  overpraised,  for  mellower 
Autumn  gives  in  fruits  more  than  is  lost  in  flowers,  but 
Spring  precedes  Autumn,  or  there  would  be  no  fruitage,  and 
this  is  the  period  to  sow  that  hereafter  you  may  reap  abun- 
dantly. The  religious  life  has  its  seasons  of  fertilization  and 
almost  invariably  prefers  the  responsive  soil  of  earlier  years. 
Think  of  St.  Francis,  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  of  Henry  Martyn, 
of  the  Essex  rustic,  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon ;  of  many  others 
not  less  devoted,  though  less  widely  known,  who  passed  at  a 
bound  while  still  young  to  pulpit  power.  Theirs  was  the  ro- 
mance that  issues  in  realism,  and  its  risks  were  justified  by  its 
results.    At  manhood's  dawn  is  given, 

"So  much  of  earth,  so  much  of  heaven, 
And  such  impetuous  blood," 

that  it  is  seldom  hard  for  novices  to  cherish  the  most  en- 
thusiastic beliefs.  Before  their  ardor  can  be  chilled  they 
are  immersed  in  their  calling;  when  disappointments  come, 
they  are  pledged  to  it  beyond  retreat.  Youthful  impulses 
are  not  infrequently  mistaken  ones,  but  they  more  often  at- 
tain higher  things  and  are  better  loved  than  the  sedate  re- 
flections of  maturity.  It  is  an  unspeakable  boon  that  you  are 
at  an  age  when  you  dare  to  think  your  own  thoughts,  to 
conceive  them  vividly  and  to  act  upon  them  with  alacrity. 
And  since  there  is  no  calling  which  requires  so  long  an  ap- 
prenticeship as  preaching,  you  cannot  prepare  for  it  too 
rapidly  nor  too  extensively.  It  is  with  ministers  as  it  is  with 
trees :  if  you  lop  off  the  branches  into  which  they  are  pouring 
their  virgin  sap,  some  rough  excrescence  will  always  show  the 
wound,  and  what  might  have  been  a  spreading  oak  of  liberal 
shade  becomes  a  misshapen  trunk.  Walter  Bagehot  relates 
that  the  elder  P*itt  would  not  aUow  his  great  son's  juvenile 
gifts  to  be  discounted.     Accordingly,  while  yet  a  mere  strip- 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      205 

ling,  his  father  shielded  his  talents  from  those  repressions 
that  have  crippled  many  a  budding  genius.  They  were  de- 
liberately designed  for  public  life,  drawn  out  before  intimate 
coteries  and  developed  to  a  remarkable  degree  of  precocity. 
The  beardless  youth,  soon  to  be  hailed  as  the  heaven-born 
Minister  of  State,  who  rose  in  an  astonished  House  of  Com- 
mons to  throw  down  the  gauntlet  to  Burke  and  to  confute 
Fox,  owed  the  ripeness  of  his  preternatural  ability  to  the 
hearty  encouragement  he  had  always  received  to  be  himself. 
A  young  man  may  be  immature  and  yet  formidable,  as  Wal- 
pole,  on  an  historic  occasion,  discovered  to  his  dismay.  Those 
more  daring  ventures  which  are  reprehended  by  wiseacres 
who  mistake  timidity  for  prudence  are  sometimes  preludes 
of  your  best  achievements.  You  do  not  set  out  with  a  perfect 
equipment,  but  the  interspaces  of  your  present  attainments 
afford  room  for  a  larger  selfhood  and  for  the  development  of 
latent  strength  and  considerate  discretion.  Older  men  who 
have  neglected  these  qualities  lose  elasticity,  and  in  trying 
to  be  sensible  end  in  being  commonplace.  One  hears  constant 
warnings  against  the  rash  folly  of  undisciplined  young  man- 
hood and  assurances  that  its  consequences  are  unforeseen. 
These  are  not  to  be  disregarded,  since  beyond  question  one 
soon  learns  that  it  will  not  do  to  commence  the  voyage  of  the 
preacher  all  sail  and  no  anchor.  But  I  have  observed  that 
young  ministers  are  averse  to  this  folly;  they  are  prone  to 
be  contemplative,  and,  in  their  reaction  from  a  natural  buoy- 
ancy, feel  acutely  the  sobering  aspects  of  their  momentous 
enterprise.  Their  initial  warfare  with  evil  is  a  heavy  drain 
upon  them;  faith  and  reason  seem  at  variance;  they  are 
struck  with  the  changes  of  life,  and  often  illustrate  the  say- 
ing of  the  shrewdest  man  of  his  age,  that  those  who  begin 
with  certainties  end  in  doubts,  whereas  those  who  begin  with 
doubts  end  in  certainties.^  If  such  is  your  present  state  of 
mind,  return  to  the  free  and  intelligent  activities  of  your 
first  love  for  God,  the  love  which  receives  rather  than  pro- 
duces power  and  keeps  the  soul  hopeful  and  courageous.  Be 
1  Bacon:     Advancement  of  Learning;  Bk.  I,  p.  52. 


206  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

content  to  know  that  the  empire  of  your  life  and  knowledge 
is  widened  by  sad  as  well  as  by  happy  experiences,  and  obey 
the  instinct  which  bids  you  forge  ahead,  realizing  afresh  at 
every  stage  of  your  progress  an  increasing  acceptability  to 
Christ  and  to  His  Church. 

Surrounded  as  it  is  by  the  rush  and  urge  of  the  world,  in 
what  sphere  does  the  ministerial  office  really  exist  now,  have 
right  of  way,  and  attain  lasting  influence?  The  statesman 
lives  in  history,  the  painter  in  his  picture,  the  musician  in  his 
symphony,  the  poet  in  his  song.  The  ambassador  of  God  can- 
not always  be  conspicuously  reformative  or  philanthropic.  Yet 
he  has  an  undeniable  precedence  by  reason  of  the  fact  that 
he  lives  in  the  souls  of  his  fellowmen,  and  thus  lives  because 
he  witnesses  to  eternal  verities  which  outlast  all  human  pur- 
suits. You  will  hear  the  objection  that  sermons  are  fugitive 
productions,  few  of  which  are  enshrined  in  permanent  litera- 
ture. This  is  partly  true  but  in  no  wise  fatal.  The  spoken 
word  may  lack  the  quality  of  literature,  and  yet  be  instru- 
mental in  accomplishing  vital  results.  A  single  span  of  glori- 
ous preaching,  like  that  of  the  Reformation,  does  far  more 
for  mankind  than  ages  of  benighted  endeavor.  Moreover, 
there  is  no  necessary  merit  in  permanence,  or  some  well  known 
forms  of  transgression  would  not  be  so  persistent.  One 
could,  of  course,  readily  quote  a  sentence  from  St.  Paul,  St. 
Chrysostom,  John  Calvin,  or  Pascal  which  outweighs  in 
moral  power  and  efficacy  the  legislative  acts  of  a  score  of  par- 
liaments and  congresses.  Thousands  of  orators  can  talk  for 
one  philosopher  who  can  think ;  hundreds  of  philosophers  can 
think  for  one  prophet  who  can  visualize  the  eternities.  The 
seers  who  were  orators,  thinkers,  prophets,  all  in  one,  have 
been  the  safest  monitors  of  the  race,  the  mediators  of  its  re- 
ligion, the  molders  of  its  destiny.  ,  They  understood  that  its 
flux  meant  either  progress  or  decay;  that  the  cause  of  its 
evil  could  be  traced  to  the  deep-seated  error  that  men  must 
preserve  and  not  improve  their  lot;  and  their  predictions  of 
the  future  were  based  upon  that  understanding.  You  share 
their  privileges,  which  make  the  loneliest  pulpit  in  the  land 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      207 

the  scene  of  regenerative  forces.  Such  forces  are  not  re- 
strained by  human  infirmities;  on  the  contrary,  these  have 
accentuated  man's  sense  of  need  and  driven  him  to  his  Re- 
deemer. The  Biblical  revelation  has  convinced  multitudes  of 
their  sin,  forged  the  strength  of  nations,  formulated  their 
faith  and  laws  and  repeatedly  demonstrated  that  when  na- 
tions are  alienated  from  its  teachings  their  fairest  hopes  and 
accumulations  are  in  jeopardy. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  vexed  question  of  the  nature  of  the 
ministerial  office,  which  has  divided  Christendom  for  the  last 
four  centuries.  It  is  not  germane  to  our  purpose  to  discuss 
the  Roman  Catholic  view  of  orders,  except  to  say  that  the 
differences  which  exist  between  that  view  and  those  of  simon- 
pure  Protestantism  are  best  understood  from  the  historical 
and  not  the  theological  standpoint.  Anglicanism,  as  a  branch 
of  the  Church  Catholic,  has  recently  emphasized  the  growth 
of  the  Episcopate  in  such  ways  as  to  bring  it  before  your 
immediate  attention,  declaring  it  to  be  the  indispensable  cen- 
ter of  that  Christian  unity,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  uni- 
versal solvent.  Obviously,  one  cannot  here  treat  the  issue 
with  the  thoroughness  its  importance  deserves,  but  a  few 
hints  upon  it  may  stimulate  your  interest  in  the  part  it  has 
played  in  the  development  of  the  Church  and  the  ministry. 
Previously  to  the  Oxford  Movement  sacerdotal  theories  were 
latent  rather  than  active  in  Anglicanism,  but  after  the  Trac- 
tarians  had  made  their  protest  against  the  enervated  state 
of  the  Establishment,  a  new  type  of  churchmanship  arose, 
which  insisted  that  Anglicanism  was  the  one  true  and  suffi- 
cient source,  among  English-speaking  men,  of  instruction  in 
faith,  worship  and  morals.  The  benefits  of  Divine  grace  were 
held  to  be  in  the  sole  prerogative  of  the  bishops,  who  in- 
herited them  by  ordination  in  an  unbroken  line  from  the  New 
Testament  Church.  They  and  they  alone  dispensed  the  gifts 
of  a  valid  ministry  of  the  "Word  and  the  Sacraments,  The 
very  existence  of  non-episcopal  bodies  was  spoken  of  by  ex- 
tremists of  this  faction  as  hostile  to  Christ's  Church,  and  those 
who  sustained  such  bodies  were  regarded  as  rebels  against 


208  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

her  Divine  Law  who  repudiated  an  essential  principle  of  her 
continuous  life.  The  weakening  of  the  theory  was  declared 
to  be  impossible,  and  it  was  asserted  that  every  link  in  the 
chain  of  Apostolic  Succession  remained  intact.  This  position 
was  overthrown  by  a  great  English  bishop  and  scholar,  the 
late  Dr.  Joseph  Barber  Lightfoot  of  Durham,  who  has  had  no 
superior  in  the  profundity  and  range  of  his  learning.  Fifty 
years  ago,  in  the  well-known  dissertation  attached  to  his  Com- 
mentary on  the  Philippians,  Lightfoot  collected  practically 
all  the  available  data  upon  the  question  of  orders  and  upon 
the  process  by  which  the  local  government  of  churches  by 
presbyter-bishops  passed  into  government  by  a  single  bishop 
and  his  presbyters.  He  showed  conclusively  that  there  was 
no  threefold  order  in  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  that  bishop 
and  presbyter  were  names  for  one  office  and  that  the  ' '  episco- 
pate was  formed  not  out  of  the  Apostolic  order  by  localization 
but  out  of  the  presbyteral  by  elevation."  This  important 
conclusion  aroused  vigorous  protests  from  High  Churchmen, 
but  it  has  not  been  materially  disturbed.  The  Syriac  Peshito, 
the  first  version  into  which  the  New  Testament  was  trans- 
lated, and  the  Didache,  the  most  venerable  of  early  Christian 
documents,  recovered  within  the  last  half  century,^  verified 
Dr.  Lightfoot 's  argument.  The  growth  and  the  governance 
of  the  historic  episcopate  can  undoubtedly  be  traced  from 
sub-apostolic  times,  when  authority  was  exercised  by  the 
local  churches,  until  it  reached  its  culmination  in  the  dogma 
of  papal  infallibility.  During  that  prolonged  period  the  of- 
fice passed  through  frequent  and  complicated  stages  of  evo- 
lution. The  rule  of  the  monarchical  bishops,  the  exuberance 
with  which  Ignatius  expounded  their  claims  and  dignities, 
the  Cyprianic  doctrine  which  elevated  them  to  an  unprece- 

2  The  Didache  formed  part  of  a  manucsript  of  the  eleventh  century, 
discovered  in  1873  in  the  Jerusalem  Monastery  of  the  Most  Holy  Sep- 
ulcher  in  the  Greek  quarter  of  Constantinople,  by  Bryennios  (afterward 
Greek  Metropolitan  of  Nicomedia)  and  published  by  him  in  1883.  The 
work  belongs  to  the  first  half  of  the  second  century  at  the  latest,  since 
it  is  identical  with  the  Teaching  of  the  Apostles  with  which  Clement  of 
Alexandria   (circa  160-215  A.  D.)  and  other  early  Fathers  were  familiar. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY       209 

dented  degree,  and  the  expansion  of  their  power  from  paro- 
chial to  diocesan  and  world-wide  boundaries  are  landmarks 
of  an  endless  debate  from  which  we  must  refrain.  Bap- 
tismal Regeneration,  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Holy  Com- 
munion, and  other  dogmas,  which  are  said  to  derive  their 
sacramental  value  from  the  validity  of  Anglican  Orders, 
while  still  believed  and  taught  by  Anglo-Catholics,  must 
eventually  be  vitally  affected  by  the  large  variations  already 
felt  at  the  heart  of  their  creed.  Its  exponents  were  driven 
by  the  invidious  nature  of  their  claims  to  unearth  material 
for  the  support  of  foregone  conclusions.  Their  researches 
occasionally  travestied  the  past  and  supplied  them  with  no 
sufficient  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of  Christian  thought.  They 
stood,  and  still  stand,  upon  an  imaginary  platform,  "from 
which,"  in  the  language  of  Principal  Tulloch,  "they  pro- 
ceeded to  the  condemnation  of  everybody  else,  or  the  apothe- 
osis of  themselves  as  the  representatives  of  Christian  an- 
tiquity." ^  Exclusive  sacramental  privileges  and  their  places 
in  the  Church  aiid  her  ministry  are  thus  diversely  inter- 
preted by  those  who  give  them  credence.  Whether  the  epis- 
copacy is  of  the  esse  or  only  of  the  hene  esse  of  the  Church, 
Gore,  Moberly  and  Swete  could  be  quoted  on  the  one  side; 
Lightfoot,  Hort  and  Gwatkin  on  the  other.  Until  repre- 
sentative Roman  and  Anglican  Catholics  are  agreed  upon 
the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  office,  its  precise  functions,  its 
developments  in  prelacy,  its  bearing  upon  ministerial  equal- 
ity, how  can  those  who  now  dissent  from  its  supremacy  be 
expected  to  assent  to  it?  They  admit  its  great  service  as  an 
organ  of  unity  for  correct  belief  and  successful  propaganda ; 
they  desire  the  removal  of  barriers  of  separatism ;  they  recog- 
nize the  benefits  of  wise  and  godly  oversight.  But  the 
character  of  the  authority  to  which  they  are  asked  to  subject 
themselves  will  have  to  be  more  explicitly  and  uniformly  de- 
fined before  it  can  be  employed  to  unify  divided  Protest- 
antism.* 

8  See  the  author's  The  Three  Religious  Leaders  of  Oxford,  pp.  574-576. 
4  See  Essays  on  the  Ea/rly  History  of  the  Chwoh  and  the  Ministry, 


210  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Bishop  Hensley  Henson  declares  that  no  thoughtful  or 
educated  Christian  dreams  of  finding  in  the  New  Testament 
an  indisputable  title  for  theories  of  Divine  right,  whether  of 
churches,  kingdoms,  orders,  or  individuals.  These  theories 
have  met  with  the  reverses  due  baseless  assumptions  to  which 
are  attached  the  highest  implications  of  Sacramentarianism. 
Contrary  to  Scripture,  to  Christian  experience,  to  reason,  to 
the  deeper  spiritual  instincts  of  man,  they  nevertheless  per- 
sist because  the  all-powerful  organization  of  Rome  has  em- 
bodied them.  Had  Canterbury,  or  the  Tractarians,  or  their 
offspring  the  Catholic  Anglicans,  been  the  only  sponsors  of 
the  theories,  they  could  not  have  agitated  the  Protestant 
Church  nor  thwarted  the  growth  of  her  fraternity.  The 
spectacle  of  the  educated  and  liberal  men  of  an  era  and  the 
influential  leaders  of  growing  Church  factions  traveling  at 
the  same  time  in  diametrically  opposite  directions  to  find  the 
truth  requisite  for  human  good,  has  been,  to  say  the  least, 
bewildering.  Unfortunately  the  consequences  of  this  confu- 
sion are  visited  upon  the  pulpit,  which  was  and  is  too  often 
judged  by  the  romantic  and  mystic  speech  with  which  High 
Anglicans  have  elaborated  their  ideas.  This  particular  speech 
expresses  too  little  that  has  actually  existed;  and  the  claims 
it  sets  forth  "never  really  are,  but  are  always  in  process  of 
becoming."  The  reiterations  of  Anglo-Catholics  are  tokens 
of  their  restlessness ;  they  repeatedly  assert  that  their  Church 
is  subject  to  no  authority  outside  itself,  and  yet  they  cannot 
find  an  authority  they  are  willing  to  obey  within  it.  Rome 
scouts  their  claims  to  catholicity;  of  Protestantism  they  are 
disenchanted;  and  in  their  efforts  to  establish  a  mediating 
authority  between  Christ  and  the  Church,  it  would  seem  as 
though  they  cannot  escape  a  provincialism  which  renders 
such  efforts  abortive.  Their  insensibility  to  the  relative  values 
of  evidence,  their  dislike  for  the  ampler  play  of  the  under- 
edited  by  H.  B.  Swete,  which  contains  the  best  expot-ition  of  the  Angli- 
can viewpoint  on  these  questions.  For  the  Free  Church  position  see 
Approaches  Towurds  Church  Unity,  edited  by  Newman  Smyth  and  Wil- 
liston  Walker. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      211 

standing,  their  confidence  in  attenuated  catenas  which  cannot 
hold  the  weight  they  hang  upon  them,  have  been  freely  com- 
mented upon.  They  seldom  discuss  the  history  of  denom- 
inationalism  with  scientific  accuracy,  nor,  with  some  excep- 
tions, do  they  generally  manifest  an  extensive  acquaintance 
with  the  various  phases  Christianity  has  assumed  in  the 
extended  course  of  its  philosophical  speculations. 

The  Anglicanism  of  English-speaking  peoples  must  not  be 
confused  with  that  which  has  been  described  here.  When, 
for  example,  the  Bishop  of  London  says  that  nothing  could 
possibly  induce  the  Church  of  England  to  part  with  her  be- 
lief in  her  historic  orders,  he  begs  the  question.  That  belief, 
defined  in  the  light  of  her  own  articles  and  precedents,  holds 
that  the  episcopacy  is  the  most  ancient  Scriptural  and  bene- 
ficial form  of  Church  polity ;  but  it  nowhere  teaches  that  there 
is  a  vital,  irremovable  difference  between  episcopal  and  non- 
episcopal  communions  as  such.  This  difference  is  the  dis- 
tinctive mark  of  Anglo-Catholics,  but  its  chimerical  nature 
should  not  be  permitted  to  obscure  the  legitimate  beliefs 
which  they  hold.  They  have  returned  in  many  particulars 
not  only  to  the  Carolinian  divines,  to  the  mediaeval  rituals, 
to  the  ancient  Fathers,  to  the  Apostles,  but  to  Christ,  and  in 
worship  to  the  ordered  reverence  and  beauty  of  holiness. 
They  blend  conservatism  in  religious  traditions  with  an  in- 
telligent progressiveness  in  social  and  political  ideals,  the 
latter  of  which  some  complacent  Low  Churchmen  and  Evan- 
gelicals who  deprecate  their  forms  of  worship  might  well 
imitate.  Their  system  lives  by  the  life  that  is  in  it,  not  by 
the  errors  it  enshrines,  and  its  remarkable  advance  is  to  be 
attributed  to  the  successful  warfare  it  has  waged  on  secular- 
ism, to  its  interpenetration  of  an  insulated  communion  with 
the  idea  of  catholicity,  and  to  its  revival  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church  as  the  universal  Mother  of  mankind.  Its  con- 
spicuous limitations  have  not  prevented  its  rich  religious 
suggestiveness,  fragrant  with  the  peculiar  tenderness  of 
sacramental  usage,  and  nurtured  by  the  idea  of  the  sanctifi- 
cation   of  all  visible   means  through  the   Incarnate   Word. 


212  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

These  are  the  lasting  qualities  of  a  type  of  Churchmanship 
that  has  hallowed  and  adorned  the  worship  of  God. 

The  insistence  that  authority  in  the  Church  is  given  in 
every  instance  by  episcopal  commission  is  flatly  contradicted 
by  the  Puritan  conception  of  the  ministry,  which,  for  it,  is 
not  sanctuaried  in  the  priesthoods  peculiar  to  the  older  or- 
ders, but  is  bestowed  by  the  Church  as  a  whole,  and  not  by 
historical  dispensation.  No  ancient  organization,  impressive 
for  its  magnitude,  duration  and  gorgeous  extemalism,  de- 
termines or  approves  your  ministerial  status,  which  rests  upon 
what  you  are  in  yourselves,  upon  what  the  self  of  each  of 
you  is  by  the  grace  of  God,  upon  what  you  can  accomplish  in 
the  harvesting  of  souls,  and  upon  the  indubitable  testimony 
of  the  Gospel  which  charters  you  as  ambassadors  of  Christ. 
Manifestly,  your  influence  must  radiate  from  inward  rather 
than  from  outward  sources;  and  the  Protestant  ministry 
which  cannot  meet  this  requirement  will  soon  become  as 
though  it  were  exercised  in  a  necropolis.  It  is  idle  to  claim 
dignities  for  your  calling  which  are  not  substantiated  by  its 
necessity,  its  reasonableness  and  its  honorable  service.  When 
your  preaching  recreates  men  and  women  in  the  image  of 
God  by  communicating  the  eternal  counsels  which  are  wis- 
dom's light  and  love's  directer  ray,  its  credentials  are  com- 
plete, nor  will  its  hearers  ask  for  further  proof  of  your  divine 
mission.  These  observations  emphasize  what  will  presently 
be  said  about  the  Christian  manhood  of  the  preacher,  and 
show  that  every  candidate  for  the  ministry  should  strive  to 
surpass  himself  and  compel  even  his  defects  to  serve  so  great 
a  vocation.  Assuredly  the  ordaining  acts  of  episcopacy  are 
conferred  on  many  candidates  who  have  already  felt  the 
imposition  of  the  Spirit's  mightier  hand.  But  your  specific, 
privileges  belong  to  the  simplicity  which  is  in  Christ,  and 
the  waiver  of  adventitious  things  is  the  finger  on  the  dial 
which  registers  your  genuine  authority. 

The  real  strength  of  your  calling  consists  of  the  brave 
acceptance  of  life  as  you  find  it,  the  determination  to  reverence 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      213 

its  possibilities,  and  the  belief  in  its  intrinsic  holiness.  If 
tempted  to  lean  on  externals  rather  than  on  essentials,  glance 
at  the  clerical  abnormalities  such  a  habit  has  often  produced. 
The  clergyman  who  clings  to  a  fictitious  precedence,  for  whom 
all  progress  is  encased  in  his  particular  caste,  or  the  one  who 
turns  day  into  night  watching  with  jealous  eye  his  diminish- 
ing importance,  or  the  one  who  speaks  and  acts  as  though  he 
belonged  to  a  race  of  wilted  priests,  are  specimens  whose 
mentality  is  easily  mapped  out.  Their  profuse  sentimental- 
ism  drives  away  normal  people,  and  they  are  poorly  repaid 
for  its  indulgence  by  the  lavish  adulation  of  select  disciples. 
Another  and  exotic  group  is  sensitive  to  a  fault  and  cannot 
endure  the  hurly-burly  of  masculine  intercourse,  nor  be  at 
home  in  any  place  unsheltered  by  an  indoor  dilettantism  that 
defeats  the  serious  business  of  the  ministry.  These  cases  of 
arrested  development  might  be  multiplied,  and  though  they 
are  on  the  wane,  they  survive  in  sufficient  numbers  to  ad- 
monish you  to  be  inclusive,  open,  genial  and  democratic. 
Do  not  mistake  separateness  for  sanctity,  nor  suppose  that 
because  you  are  not  as  other  men,  therefore  you  are  their  bet- 
ters. Difference  is  not  necessarily  superiority,  and,  while 
isolation  may  quicken  talent,  fellowship  forms  character, 
since  it  deepens  and  broadens  the  channels  of  life  and  in- 
duces in  you  the  social  conceptions  which  outvie  any  indi- 
vidual's insulated  thought. 

There  is  also  a  corrective  effect  in  your  association  with 
ministers  of  every  creed  and  church.  Intercourse  with  them 
reveals  the  merits  of  their  several  organizations  and  shows 
that  right-minded  men  agree  far  more  than  they  differ.  En- 
ter their  society  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  and  you  will 
receive  enlightenment  for  your  own  heart.  The  historical 
unity  of  the  Roman  Catholic,  the  reverent  order  of  the  Angli- 
can, the  intellectualism  of  the  Presbyterian,  the  independence 
of  the  Baptist,  the  culture  of  the  Congregationalist,  the  fervent 
fighting  force  of  the  Methodist,  the  quietism  of  the  Friend, 
the  educational  methods  of  the  Lutheran,  the  humanism  of 


214  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  Unitarian,  the  ethical  ideas  of  the  Hebrew, — all  these  are 
as  significant  for  the  army  of  the  Living  God  as  are  its  va- 
rious corps  for  our  national  army,  and  the  Guards  Brigade 
or  the  Black  Watch  Regiment  for  that  of  Britain. 

II 

Whatever  your  ministry  becomes  by  the  grace  of  God,  you 
begin  it  upon  the  basis  of  a  simple,  essential,  transformed 
manhood.  Among  your  ideals  this  of  your  personal  char- 
acter comes  first,  since  it  is  basic  to  all  the  rest,  the  material 
out  of  which  the  prophet  and  the  preacher  are  made.  St. 
Paul  exhorted  Timothy  to  permit  no  one  to  despise  his  youth 
but  to  uphold  his  self-respect  and  reputation  by  making  full 
proof  of  his  ministry.^  The  exhortation  was  addressed  to 
one  who  was  a  man  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  both  the  exhortation 
and  such  manhood  were  never  more  necessary  than  now. 
You  are  not  to  be  merely  tolerated,  nor  treated  as  depend- 
ents, nor  looked  upon  as  pawns  to  be  moved  about  by  ca- 
price, as  if  unsuited  to  the  needs  of  your  generation. 
Preachers  lend  themselves  to  this  contumely  when  they 
underestimate  either  their  calling  or  their  gifts.  False 
self-depreciation  is  as  much  a  violation  of  rectitude  as 
self-conceit,  and  nothing  is  more  repulsive  than  that  specious 
vanity  which  apes  humility.  According  to  Shakespeare,  self- 
love  is  vile,  but  it  is  not  so  vile  as  the  studied  abjectness 
which  is  nothing  more  than  inverted  egotism.  Shun  as  you 
would  a  plague  the  clerical  mannerism  which  has  the  appear- 
ance of  downfallen  amiability  dashed  by  professional  pre- 
tentiousness. Do  not  be  deluded  by  the  notion  that  you 
should  be  slavish  or  apologetic,  nor  forget  that  you  are  first 
and  last  the  slaves  of  Christ,  and  the  servants  of  men  for 
His  sake.  When  all  heaven's  artillery  was  arrayed  against 
him.  Job  exclaimed,  ''Till  I  die  I  will  not  put  away  mine 
integrity  from  me. ' '  His  integrity  was  the  tissue  of  his  very 
being,  which  nothing  could  destroy,  and  his  protest  registered 

6  I  Timothy  iv :  12. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      215 

one  of  the  fundamental  requirements  of  every  ambassador  of 
God.^  Convinced  that  where  manhood  shrivels  the  ministry- 
is  degraded  and  that  what  you  have  to  say  the  world  needs  to 
heed,  behave  as  those  who  are  public  benefactors,  who  owe  no 
man  anything  except  the  Gospel;  whose  intercourse  is  sin- 
cere; whose  purposes  are  laudable;  whose  lives  are  an  open 
book.  Beyond  question,  whatever  else  you  are,  you  must 
be  men  whom  God  can  choose  and  set  apart  for  His  purposes 
as  He  did  young  David  among  the  sheepfolds  of  Bethlehem. 

The  strength  of  the  Protestant  ministry  depends  upon  its 
personal  character,  and  it  dedicates  the  manhood  I  have  in- 
dicated to  its  grandest  uses  when  it  makes  the  pulpit  the 
center  of  human  and  divine  influence.  The  prophets  of  every 
era  were  conscious  of  this  dedication,  and,  while  differing  in 
many  respects,  were  a  unit  in  their  identification  of  upright- 
ness of  individual  life  with  the  nature  of  their  mission. 
There  are  to-day  specific  reasons  for  that  advanced  self- 
realization  which  transcends  ecclesiastical  limitations.  Men 
of  stalwart  and  solid  character,  ordained  of  God  and  esteemed 
by  their  fellows,  intent  upon  the  largest  service,  unmoved 
by  the  glamour  of  honors  and  emoluments,  eager  only  for  the 
reward  of  those  who  turn  many  to  righteousness,  are  the  chief 
demand  of  the  situation  you  confront,  and  their  preponder- 
ance will  determine  the  future  of  the  Reformed  Churches. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances,  a  conscientious  minister  of 
strong  natural  parts  who  mingles  with  the  people  without 
forfeiting  his  independence  or  his  courtesy  will  go  far  in  the 
routine  duties  of  the  clerical  office.  Should  he  ask,  however, 
"What  lack  I  yet?"  the  answer  is,  "Little  enough!"  unless 
he  aspires  to  the  preaching  which  is  a  sure  word  of  prophecy, 
evoking  man's  ceaseless  question,  "How  shall  I  appear  before 
God?"  and  moving  his  every  impulse  toward  righteousness. 
Such  preaching  possesses  not  only  an  adequate  expression  of 
intellectualized  sentiment,  but  that  sanctified  passion  which 
issues  from  the  preacher's  personal  experience,  by  virtue  of 

«  Cf.  Milton's  noble  vindication  of  himself  in  The  Second  Defetue  of 
the  People  of  England. 


216  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

which  he  is  consciously  a  son  of  God  and  a  freeman  in  Christ. 
If  preaching  of  this  kind  be  your  ideal,  as  I  assume  it  is, 
you  will  not  be  satisfied  that  you  are  sober  or  intense,  sooth- 
ing or  provocative.  The  revelation  within  you  that  God  for 
Christ's  sake  accepts  you  as  you  are  and  in  your  sin,  to  save 
you  from  its  guilt  and  wretchedness,  overcomes  fluctuating 
moods,  snaps  the  gilded  chains  of  mere  rhetoric,  and  smites 
the  consciences  of  your  hearers  with  the  bolts  of  its  convic- 
tion. As  a  primal  assurance  of  Divine  grace,  it  offers  the 
firmest  foundation  for  your  ministry  of  the  Word,  and  the 
largest  openings  for  its  edification.  Its  fountain  of  respon- 
sive emotion,  which  never  runs  dry,  arises  in  the  heart,  suf- 
fuses the  will  and  the  reason  with  its  vital  certitudes,  and 
preserves  the  Evangelical  message  of  the  Church.  The  am- 
bassadors of  Christ  who  have  had  the  soul  of  the  martyr,  the 
vision  of  the  seer  and  the  acumen  of  the  Christian  thinker 
have  been,  without  exception,  regenerated  men.  We  do  not 
associate  them  with  the  chameleon-like  character  of  the  orator 
who  takes  color  from  his  surroundings  and  whose  principles, 
if  they  do  not  suit  the  popular  taste,  can  be  changed.  He 
comes  to  excite  the  spirit;  they,  to  redeem  it;  his  eloquence 
is  ephemeral;  theirs  is  the  unveiling  of  a  great  sacramental 
deed;  he  has  a  habitual  facility  for  speech  which  dies  away; 
they  utter  the  sayings  which  are  as  a  nail  fastened  in  a  sure 
place ;  he  herds  with  the  public  mind ;  they  stand  above  it  to 
upraise  its  ideals  and  establish  its  final  aims;  he  deals  with 
the  hackneyed  issues  which  seldom  go  beyond  the  temporal; 
they  handle  the  creative  Word  of  the  Lord  which  is  a  con- 
suming and  a  purifying  fire.  Neither  wealth,  freedom,  in- 
stitutions, nor  doctrinal  systems  are  so  urgently  needed  as 
regenerated  men,  and  the  Christian  realm  will  dwindle  unless 
they  appear  within  it.  Do  not  rely  too  exclusively  upon  the 
ethical  ministry  which  is  subordinated  in  the  New  Testament 
to  that  of  grace.  The  ethical  moment  has  never  been  the 
supremely  religious  moment,  not  even  for  the  Greek;  and  al- 
though clean  hands  and  a  pure  heart  are  absolute  requisites, 
the  number  of  those  who  seek  them  through  Heaven's  mercy 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHEISTIAN  MINISTRY      217 

in  Christ  could  well  be  increased.  You  may  gain  intellectual, 
moral  and  theological  values  which  aid  preaching;  neverthe- 
less, it  is  not  these  but  personal  and  saving  faith  that  is  the 
mainspring  for  your  message ;  nor  can  those  values  be  divorced 
from  that  faith  without  losing  half  their  worth.  Insist  upon 
the  truth  that  he  who  does  righteousness  is  righteous;  but 
also  insist  upon  the  deeper  truth  that  the  source  of  righteous- 
ness is  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  Otherwise  your  virtues,  in 
themselves  commendable,  are  like  guests  bidden  to  a  Barmecide 
feast.  Thus  you  will  answer  those  who  oppose  Christianity 
by  demonstrating  that  it  is  the  supreme  method  of  goodness, 
and  that  not  the  ethical  but  the  redeemed  being  of  man  is 
the  organ  of  social  and  spiritual  regeneration.  The  witness 
of  the  Spirit  of  love  and  holiness  in  your  spirit,  given  that 
you  may  communicate  His  afflatus  to  others,  is  the  divine 
process  which  insures  blessing  from  the  Lord  and  righteous- 
ness from  the  God  of  your  salvation. 

There  are  preachers  who,  though  justly  esteemed  for  their 
acquirements,  have  not  the  one  thing  needful.  They  possess 
intellectual  superiority,  flexibility  of  manner  and  limpidity 
of  statement.  They  cannot  be  accused  of  the  over-emphasis, 
the  indiscretion  and  the  tumult  that  indicate  a  surcharged 
rather  than  a  harmonious  mind.  Yet  their  choicest  periods 
fall  dead  at  their  feet,  and  they  leave  audiences  admiring 
them  but  unmoved  by  what  they  say.  There  is  no  overflow 
of  inspired  speech  "in  all  the  keys  of  passion,"  no  realistic 
expression  of  throbbing  life  in  their  studied  and  graceful 
discourse.  It  has  more  of  learning  than  of  the  might  of  inde- 
finable wisdom  we  call  Divine,  that  nourisher  of  prophets, 
apostles,  poets,  which  is  so  often  indifferent  to  human  wisdom. 
Their  preaching  is  bookish  and  conventional,  not  experimental 
nor  emotional.  They  speak  from  a  literary  point  of  view, 
whereas  the  speech  which  is  power  is  intensely  vital  and  mob- 
ilizes all  gifts  for  its  cause.  Hence  the  creative  religious 
imagination  which  is  the  soul  of  sacred  utterance  and  de- 
termines its  range  of  vision  has  forsaken  them.  It  is  not  in 
them  to  say : 


218  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

"Oft  when  the  Word  is  on  me  to  deliver, 
Lifts  the  illusion,  and  the  truth  lies  bare; 

Desert  or  throng,  the  city  or  the  river, 
Melts  in  a  lucid  Paradise  of  air, — 

"Only  like  souls  I  see  the  folk  thereunder. 

Bound  who  should  conquer,  slaves  who  should  be  kingfs, — 
Hearing  their  one  hope  with  an  empty  wonder. 

Sadly  contented  in  a  show  of  things; — 

"Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 

Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet  call, — 

Oh,  to  save  these!  to  perish  for  their  saving. 
Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all !"  ^ 

What  weight  of  thought  and  sentiment  they  lose  who  do  not 
carry  this  burden  of  prophecy,  nor  bend  beneath  the  over- 
shadowings  of  the  Highest,  nor  strive,  even  unto  pain,  to  re- 
incarnate Eternal  Truth !  The  Kingdom  suffers  the  violence 
Myers  idealizes  in  his  Saint  Paul;  it  yields  to  the  pressure  of 
an  apostolic  urgency.  Moreover,  that  urgency  adjusts  itself 
to  widely  varied  temperaments  and  glorifies  themes  whose 
treatment  must  otherwise  be  ordinary.  Faraday's  subjects 
were  a  tea  kettle,  a  chimney,  soot,  ashes;  yet  his  enthusiasm 
for  science  drew  London  to  his  feet.  Jane  Barlow  describes 
an  Irish  hovel,  its  roof  of  sod  and  its  peat  fire,  with  such  a 
mystical  and  yet  luminous  touch  that  all  the  tragedy  of  Ire- 
land breathes  from  her  pages.  In  superior  ways  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  the  preacher  certifies  the  Divine  Presence  in  humblest 
surroundings  which  are  sincere  and  undefiled,  rich  toward  the 
poor  in  spirit,  restraining  the  over-sanguine,  prompting  the 
timid.  What  appears  to  be  dust  He  proves  to  be  granite,  and 
cowardly  retreat  is  turned  into  heroic  advance  at  His  com- 
mand. The  tranquillity  of  a  musing  heart  is  also  His  abode, 
where  He  speaks  in  the  still,  small  voice  which  outbids  the 
tempest,  the  earthquake  and  the  fire.  Wherever  the  Lord 
thus  gives  Himself  to  His  spokesmen,  their  respective  disposi- 
tions are  laid  under  His  constraint,  and  they  become  in  their 
several  ways  the  interpreters  of  Heaven. 

1  F.  W.  H.  Myers:  Sadnt  Paul,  p.  34. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      219 

Two  universal  appeals  greet  you,  the  appeal  for  pardon,  and 
the  appeal  for  goodness,  and  once  these  are  satisfied  by  your 
ministry,  the  Kingdom  is  born  in  men.  You  must  impart  an 
actual  vivid  knowledge  of  God's  saving  grace  through  sermons 
that  succor  the  lowly  and  the  meek,  uphold  the  weak  who 
stumble  and  the  faint  who  fall,  rescue  those  whose  virtues  are 
threatened  by  temptation,  and  those  whose  vices  are  made  more 
desperate  by  unavailing  remorse.  The  languid  rhetorician, 
gratified  by  the  husks  of  earthly  homage,  arrogant  and  grace- 
less in  his  temporalities;  the  master  of  extemporaneous  dis- 
course, knitting  it  together  with  a  facility  that  has  neither 
poignancy  nor  depth,  cannot  avail  for  the  spiritual  emer- 
gencies you  have  to  overcome.  "What  others  scarcely  dare  to 
whisper  in  their  secret  prayers  you  are  called  upon  to  publish 
abroad.  The  publication  will  not  be  deficient  in  authoritative 
and  winning  qualities  so  long  as  it  is  controlled  by  Him  Who 
sends  you  forth.  That  clever  satirist  of  the  clergy,  Samuel 
Butler,  illustrates  the  truth  that  criticism  is  a  commodity 
which  can  be  bought  very  cheaply,  though  its  actual  value  is 
another  matter.  He  expressed  the  popular  notion  in  saying 
that  the  minister  is  expected  to  be  "a  human  Sunday,"  and 
that  things  are  not  to  be  done  by  him  which  are  venial  in 
the  "week  day  classes,"  The  raison  d'etre  of  his  vocation  is 
its  consecration  to  a  Christian  idealism  in  word  and  deed, 
which  elevates  him  in  the  general  apprehension.  Men  do  not 
regard  the  elevation  as  separative,  but  as  their  delegated  con- 
tribution through  him  to  what  they  deem  religious.  * '  This, ' ' 
remarks  Butler,  "is  why  a  clergyman  is  so  often  called  a 
vicar, — he  being  the  person  whose  vicarious  goodness  is  to 
stand  for  that  of  those  entrusted  to  his  charge."  The  author 
of  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  misread  your  commission,  which  has 
to  be  ratified  in  far  nobler  ways  than  he  indicated.  But  in 
misreading  it,  he  revealed  the  widespread  sentiment  concern- 
ing its  honor  and  responsibility.  However  read,  the  visible 
approval  of  God  must  rest  upon  it ;  and  whether  ministers  are 
legalists,  sacramentarians  or  evangelicals,  repentance  toward 
Him  and  faith  in  Christ  are  to  be  ever  personal  for  them,  and 


220  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  first  article  of  their  propaganda.  The  reality  of  these 
truths  has  but  to  subside  into  a  reproachful  memory  of  de- 
parted confidence  and  peace  for  their  attempted  impartation 
to  become  a  mockery.  Preaching  is,  therefore,  not  to  be 
judged  by  the  stir  it  makes,  but  by  its  real  end,  and  this  is 
solely  determined  by  its  faithful  proclamation  of  the  Divine 
grace  which  purifies  human  lives. 

Christian  conversion  should  not  be  confused  with  those 
changes  at  the  behest  of  conviction  which  have  frequently  oc- 
curred in  distinguished  individuals,  since  it  is  preeminently  a 
regenerating  process,  which,  while  often  sharing  the  intellec- 
tual importance  of  such  instances,  exceeds  them  in  the  char- 
acter it  produces  and  the  service  it  renders.  The  historic 
types  of  justifying  faith,  and  the  work  they  did  for  the  Church 
and  the  world,  are  doubtless  well  known  to  you.  Their  hold 
on  eternal  verities  was  due  to  the  discovery  that  integral 
religious  beliefs,  the  acceptance  of  which  hinges  solely  upon 
external  testimony,  operate  under  defective  conditions. 
Faith  thus  related  is  vulnerable  and,  even  when  sincere,  it 
is  not  to  be  compared  for  preaching  values  with  the  faith  in- 
spired by  your  personal  union  with  Christ.  Experiment  as 
you  may,  this  is  the  position  from  which  you  must  not  be  dis- 
lodged. While  it  is  held,  your  message  is  neither  minimized 
to  a  mere  scheme  of  probabilities,  nor  reduced  to  those  whims 
of  subjectivity  which  are  as  moonlight  unto  sunlight  when 
compared  with  the  assurance  of  the  regenerated  believer. 
Persevere  during  youth's  prime  in  this  state  of  being,  where 
the  things  that  waste  the  preacher's  substance  are  banished, 
and  the  truth  which  outvies  intellectualism  is  your  heritage, 
at  once  the  objective  of  your  devotion  and  of  your  reasoned 
discourse.  Carry  to  the  close  of  your  ministry,  untarnished 
and  unimpaired,  the  sense  of  your  access  to  immediate  plenary 
grace,  in  order  that  you  may  proclaim  it  to  every  seeker  after 
God.  A  distinction  far  too  sharp  to  be  beneficial  has  been 
drawn  between  a  ministry  that  is  educational  and  one  that  is 
evangelistic.  Its  severity  is  traceable  to  those  objections  which 
from  the  first  have  been  lodged  against  the  doctrine  of  Chris- 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      221 

tian  assurance,  the  recipients  of  which,  from  St.  Paul  to 
Luther,  from  Luther  to  Wesley,  from  Wesley  to  Newman, 
were  wont  to  regard  themselves  and  the  Creator  as  the  only 
valid  ends,  for  which  all  else  was  the  means.  Lesser  men 
have  made  even  larger  assertions  of  their  rights  as  freemen 
in  grace  and  have  not  always  realized  their  corresponding  re- 
sponsibilities. A  species  of  evangelism  which  just  now  monop- 
olizes too  much  of  the  time  and  energy  of  Protestantism  has 
identified  this  great  truth  of  Christian  assurance  with  nearly 
every  form  of  religious  bigotry  and  wilful  ignorance.  No 
dogma  ever  emanated  from  mediasvalism  itself  that  was  more 
contradictory  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity  than  some  charac- 
teristic utterances  of  men  who  speak  of  regeneration  as  if 
they  held  the  patent  for  its  transmission.  Yet  when  these  de- 
tractions have  been  considered,  they  are  slight  indeed  com- 
pared with  the  illumination  which  regenerating  grace  has 
diffused  in  countless  multitudes.  It  is  no  talisman,  no  magic 
spell,  no  shibboleth,  but  the  historic  working  of  the  love  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus  throughout  the  Christian  ages.  It  knows 
the  human  soul  and  pledges  it  no  instantaneous  perfection; 
but,  when  rightly  appropriated  and  applied  to  meet  the  mind 
of  each  moving  age,  it  is  Christianity  at  its  best ;  a  vigilant  and 
winsome  wisdom  which  rebukes  materialized  conceptions  and 
intellectual  self-sufficiency,  warring  on  spurious  forms  of  spir- 
ituality and  on  the  pride  which  refuses  to  bring  every  thought 
into  captivity  to  the  obedience  of  Christ.*  As  such,  preach  it, 
for  it  makes  your  mission  an  inherent  part  of  yourself  and 
gives  it  the  reversion  of  the  future.  The  minister  of  God  who 
is  not  definitely  prepared  to  do  the  work  of  an  evangelist  and 
to  embody  therein  his  experiences  as  a  regenerated  man  is 
grievously  handicapped.  Economize  those  experiences  for 
pulpit  purposes,  steadily  directing  them  to  the  various  phases 
of  your  environment. 

Suppress  any  tendency  to  ignore  or  to  dismiss  with  sweeping 
generalities  numberless  fellow  Christians  who  do  not  share 
your  opinions  on  this  matter.     The  secret  operations  of  the 

*  II  Corinthians  x :  6. 


222  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Divine  Presence  in  human  spirits  do  not  submit  themselves 
to  the  rough  and  ready  assignments  of  those  who  are 
righteous  overmuch.  Avoid  also  the  reading  of  the  ma- 
jority of  diaries  which  have  long  been  part  of  the  religious 
paraphernalia  of  evangelicalism.  They  are  seldom  robust  in 
tone,  and  often  cater  to  an  unwholesome  concern  about  the 
minutiffi  of  strained  moods,  or  to  a  morbid  analysis  of  faults 
that  were  better  left  undissected.  In  them  the  soul,  sick 
through  excessive  scrupulousness,  estimates  its  progress  by  the 
shadows  rather  than  by  the  sunshine.  It  is  not  from  these 
trivialities  but  from  his  whole  life  in  Christ  that  the  preacher's 
inspiration  flashes  out,  and  when  you  forget  them  you  are 
more  likely  to  dwell  in  that  hidden  depth  of  Love  Divine 
which  is  the  strength  of  the  pulpit.  Pledged  to  regeneration 
as  the  main  factor  of  prophetic  existence,  do  not  hesitate  to 
enter  within  the  mystic  cloud  nor  to  reveal  in  your  preaching 
the  fruits  of  your  obediencQ  to  the  heavenly  vision.  I  strongly 
deprecate  the  naked  parade  of  all  we  have  ever  been  and  done, 
and  would  not  advise  you  to  imitate  those  brethren  who  strip 
their  souls  bare  before  the  public  and  recite  the  strange  tales 
of  their  past  for  the  press.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  many 
clergymen  lose  the  main  source  of  their  strength  because  of 
an  unfaith  disguised  as  spiritual  reticence. 

Christian  experience  communicates  through  abasement  as 
well  as  elevation ;  it  casts  us  down  to  lift  us  up ;  it  has  its  pen- 
ances and  its  paeans ;  its  sounds  are  both  stormy  and  soothing 
in  our  ears.  Yet  so  that  it  grants  us  souls  for  our  hire,  it 
should  mould  as  it  will  our  passive  clay.  By  its  means  genius 
has  exceeded  itself  in  preaching,  and  less  famous  endeavors 
have  been  made  bright  and  beautiful.  You  have  not  to  be  a 
Boanerges  nor  give  out  sermons  that  decree  the  faith  and 
practice  of  continents  in  order  to  prove  your  acceptance  by 
your  Master.  "Watchful  instruction,  gentle  counsel,  loving 
persistence,  the  silent  entreaty  of  a  life  of  luminous  devotion, 
are  the  specific  gifts  of  preachers  who  live  dangerously  for  sin 
and  sufficiently  for  redemption.  Partake  freely  of  the  grace 
God  provides,  for  most  of  the  mischief  wrought  by  profes- 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      223 

sional  teachers  of  religion  is  due  to  their  neglect  of  the  life- 
giving  stream.  If  earnestness  is  quenched,  if  self  protrudes, 
if  prayer  is  a  burden,  if  before  the  assembly  of  your  people 
you  feel  no  melting  of  the  heart,  forget  yourself,  stoop  down, 
and  drink,  and  live  again.  When  your  own  soul  grows  lean, 
half  measures  will  not  check  a  condition  which  can  become 
depraved.  You  may  never  commit  those  oifenses  which  in- 
cur the  indignation  that  hurls  men  into  ignominy ;  but  to  pro- 
tect yourself  and  your  calling  from  spiritual  dearth,  return 
at  every  stage  in  your  career  to  the  God  of  your  life  and 
office,  inquire  of  Him  what  He  would  have  you  be,  and,  at 
least,  attempt  to  be  that  before  you  again  lift  up  your  voice 
in  the  congregation.  Until  there  is  a  more  adorable  being 
than  the  Eternal  Father,  a  better  service  than  that  of  His 
Son,  a  mightier  power  than  virtuous  love,  a  grander  vocation 
than  the  redemption  of  mankind,  regeneration  in  Christ  will 
be  for  you  the  way  to  the  Father,  the  power  of  love  in  sac- 
rifice, the  life  of  God  in  your  mission  and  message.  Person- 
ality, free  will,  the  moral  sense,  the  affections,  attain  their 
highest  quality  from  the  Indwelling  Christ,  and  those  who  are 
partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature  can  identify  its  sublimities, 

".  .  .  with  murmurs  of  the  air, 

And  motions  of  the  forest  and  sea, 

And  voices  of  living  beings,  and  woven  hymns 

Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man." 

The  preacher  who  abides  in  the  fellowship  of  his  Lord  will  ver- 
ify his  teachings  and  ministrations  by  the  experiences  of  that 
fellowship.  To  make  the  sense  of  His  presence  the  habitual 
practice  of  your  lives  is  to  do  a  service  for  yourself  and  for 
your  fellow  men,  which  neither  cogency  nor  amplitude  of  mind 
can  render  of  themselves.  Bunyan  fully  understood  the  mean- 
ing of  the  communion  that  consecrates  the  ambassador  of 
Christ,  and  phrased  it  in  his  inimitable  style  when  Hopeful 
was  spurned  by  Atheist,  who  asserted  that  there  was  no  celes- 
tial city;  whereupon  Christian  made  reply:  "Did  we  not  see 
it  from  the  top  of  Mount  Clear,  when  we  were  with  the  shep- 


224  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

herds?"  Upon  that  appeal  no  denial  could  be  fastened, 
nor  can  there  be  now,  so  long  as  the  Indwelling  Christ  is  the 
personal  source  of  your  ministry.  See  to  it  that  you  trans- 
late the  secret  of  His  presence  into  a  creed  of  reason  and  of 
faith,  and  into  the  blameless  living  that  effects  renewals  in 
society,  which  unaided  speech  cannot  accomplish. 

"Whatever  may  be  the  philosophical  or  theological  culture  on 
which  your  thinking  feeds,  and  whether  you  are  in  temper  crit- 
ical or  conservative,  you  will  not  lose  the  sense  of  religious  real- 
ity so  long  as  there  is  a  vital  unity  between  your  regenerative 
experience  and  your  theology.     Such  a  unity  best  assimilates 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual   elements   of  preaching.     The 
Bishops  of  Ely,  Oxford  and  Ripon,  the  Regius  Professor  of 
Divinity  at  Oxford  University,  the  Master  of  the  Temple 
and  other  authorities  of  Anglicanism  have  recently  presented 
a  report  to  their  Church  which  deals  judiciously  with  this  sub- 
ject.    The  argument  underlying  what  they  say  shows  that 
Christian  experience  is  the  raw  material  of  true  doctrine. 
They  contrast  "Theology,  the  knowing  of  God,"  with  "Re- 
ligion, the  keeping  of  rules,"  as  the  nobler  and  indeed  the 
fundamental  science.     Paradoxical  as  it  appears,  the  contrast 
is  profoundly  suggestive  and  deserves  your  painstaking  atten- 
tion.    For  if  modernity  has  taught  preachers  any  lesson,  it  is 
that  practice  divorced  from  knowledge  deteriorates,     Rule-of- 
thumb  sermons  are  as  undesirable  as  any  other  products  thus 
obtained.     Every  religious  revolution  that  has  transformed  na- 
tions had  its  motive  power  in  the  assimilation  of  great  theo- 
logical ideas,  which  were  no  more  fortuitous  than  the  strategy 
that  underlay  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne.     On  the  contrary, 
they  were  familiar  truths  of  the  New  Testament  Gospel,  reit- 
erated because  of  a  renewed  experience  of  their  significance ; 
and  as  such,  the  doctrinal  bases  from  which  Christianity  was 
projected   into   its  historic   expansions.    Where    it   has    re- 
treated and  decayed,  as  in  later  monasticism,  the   disaster 
began  when  the  religious  no  longer  sought  Divine  learning, 
but  forsook  their  fellows  and  fled  to  the  solitude  of  their 
cells  to  find  their  reward  in  the  raptures  of  immured  pietism. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      225 

They  evaded  the  precepts  for  lack  of  which  the  people  per- 
ished;  and  hid  their  light  within  the  precincts  of  stately 
shrines,  where  they  remained  obdurate  and  non-social  until 
doom  fell  upon  them.     We  are  always  within  earshot  of  the 
multitudes  Jesus  loved,  and  the  key  of  Divine  knowledge  has 
not  been  taken  from  us.    Yet  can  we  claim  that  those  who 
hear  us  are  really  versed  in  Christian  truth  ?    Many  will  an- 
swer that  they  are  indifferent  to  utterances  which  are  desig- 
nated as  doctrinal,  as  though  this  were  their  fatality.     I  have 
not  found  them  so;  but  if  they  are,  the  responsible  teachers 
of  the  Church  should  overcome  the  indifference  and  make 
Christian  theology  a  living  issue.     It  must  be  so  regarded, 
appropriated,   presented,   as   to   blend  the   intellectual   and 
spiritual  interests  of  preaching,  and  raise  it  to  a  fresh  effec- 
tiveness.    Glance  at  the  advertisements  of  pulpit  themes  in 
the  secular  press,  which  are  sometimes  a  veritable  chamber  of 
horrors,  and  you  at  once  detect  how  far  a  decadent  pulpit 
has  wandered  from  its  holy  obligations,  and  become  a  sooth- 
saying.    Admitting  the  wider  scope  of  the  ministry,  it  yet  re- 
mains true  that  every  value  of  its  circumferences  depends  on 
its  center  in  a  vital  theology.     Clergymen  who  in  their  per- 
verse ignorance  of  theology,  or  their  devotion  to  secondary 
things,  turn  aside  from  their  main  duty  as  the  advocates  of 
Christian  ideals,  are  prone  to  be  busy  or  bureaucratic  or  talk- 
ative men,  but  not  men  apt  to  learn,  to  teach,  to  persuade,  to 
convince  others  of  the  need  of  right  relations  with  God.     Their 
homilies  are  impotent  for  want  of  spiritual  gravamen;  they 
are  out  of  touch  with  the  tenets  of  historic  Christianity,  sub- 
jected to  the  shiftings  and  catchwords  of  the  hour,  and  are 
neither  enlightening  nor  inspiring,  as  every  such  discourse 
should  assuredly  be.    Bolingbroke  asks  in  Richard  the  Second: 

"Who  can  hold  fire  in  his  hand 

By  thinking  on  the  frosty  Caucasus  f 

Who,  likewise,  can  draw  near  the  spot  where  two  worlds  meet 
in  awful  contact,  if  he  is  insensible  to  the  communications  of 


226  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  greater  world  ? — preoccupied  with  superficial  effects  rather 
than  with  their  underlying  causes;  intent  upon  excitation 
rather  than  upon  an  apocalypse.  When  preaching  is  meager, 
it  is  because  the  preacher  is  impoverished  in  himself.  When 
it  consists  of  amateurish  essays  in  literature  or  sociology, 
this  is  because  he  has  no  stores  of  religious  reflection  to  offer 
and  must  needs  follow  the  lines  of  least  resistance.  But 
when  it  is  an  interpretation  of  the  infinitudes  of  saving  truths, 
which  makes  these  clearer  to  the  dullest  heart,  it  is  because  the 
preacher  has  tarried  with  the  God-given  sources  of  his  faith. 
The  adaptation  of  your  discourse  to  this  higher  atmosphere 
cannot  be  made  at  a  bound ;  it  is  a  process  of  habitual  medita- 
tion upon  supreme  issues,  which  engrosses  every  faculty  of 
the  preaching  mind.  I  defy  any  clergyman  who  thus  conse- 
crates himself  to  use  the  most  modest  gift  of  utterance  without 
beneficial  effects.  Lassitude  will  vanish  from  audiences  when 
he  appears,  because  as  a  guide  to  the  Invisible  he  knows  the 
territory  he  treads,  its  boundaries,  its  resources,  its  horizons 
which  verge  on  eternity.  Imbibe,  then,  the  salient  characteris- 
tics of  the  theology  at  which  I  have  hinted ;  reason  from  its 
experimental  realities ;  and  remember  that  whatever  in  the  ser- 
mon hits  the  mark  must  first  be  in  the  preacher. 

The  idea  that  the  art  of  living  religiously  is  a  sudden  in- 
centive, which  needs  no  education,  is  contradicted  by  the  fact 
that  the  deepest  spiritual  life  of  congregations  is  nourished 
by  laying  line  upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept.  In  order 
that  this  may  be  done,  you  must  be  teachers  of  doctrine,  not  in 
any  ordinary  sense,  but  after  the  manner  prescribed  by  St. 
Paul's  prayer  in  the  letter  to  the  Philippians,  instructors 
whose  *'love  abounds  yet  more  and  more  in  knowledge  and  all 
discernment. ' '  ^  Moreover,  your  theology,  be  it  little  or  much, 
should  be  homogeneous  and  consistent ;  not  an  incongruous  as- 
sortment of  ideas,  but  a  systematic  scheme  of  thought,  close 
of  texture,  however  ample  in  range.  In  behalf  of  those  who 
hear  you,  speak  of  what  you  know,  not  in  the  language  of  the 
professional  theologian,  nor  with  the  air  of  the  philosopher, 

»  Philippians  i :  9. 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      227 

nor  in  coarse  terms  which  belittle  your  subject,  but  with  natu- 
ralness and  reverence.  Do  not  be  afraid  of  dogmatic  state- 
ments, once  induction  has  compassed  them  about ;  for  there  is 
no  more  superficial  notion  than  the  assertion  that  dogma  is 
necessarily  hard,  narrow,  unreal,  and  fatal  to  spirituality. 
Dean  Church,  in  commenting  on  this  prejudice,  protests 
against  the  idea  that  dogmas  are  ''without  any  affinities  to 
poetry  or  the  truths  of  things,  or  to  the  deeper  and  more 
sacred  and  powerful  of  human  thoughts.  If  dogmas  are  not 
true,  that  is  another  matter ;  but  it  is  the  fashion  to  imply  that 
dogmas  are  worthless,  mere  things  of  the  past,  without  sense 
or  substance  or  interest,  because  they  are  dogmas.  As  if 
Dante  were  not  dogmatic  in  form  and  essence ;  as  if  the  grand- 
est and  worthiest  religious  prose  in  the  English  language  was 
not  that  of  Hooker,  nourished  amid  the  subtleties,  but  also 
amid  the  vast  horizons  and  solemn  heights,  of  scholastic  divin- 
ity. A  dogmatic  system  is  hard  in  hard  hands,  and  shallow  in 
shallow  minds,  and  barren  in  dull  ones ;  and  unreal  and  empty 
to  preoccupied  and  unsympathizing  ones;  we  dwarf  and  dis- 
tort ideas  that  we  do  not  like,  and  when  we  have  put  them 
in  our  own  shapes  and  in  our  own  connection,  we  call  them 
unmeaning  or  impossible.  Dogmas  are  but  expedients,  com- 
mon to  all  great  departments  of  human  thought,  and  felt  in  all 
to  be  necessary,  for  representing  what  are  believed  as  truths, 
for  exhibiting  their  order  and  consequences,  for  expressing  the 
meaning  of  terms  and  the  relations  of  thought.  If  they  are 
wrong,  they  are,  like  everything  else  in  the  world,  open  to  be 
proved  wrong ;  if  they  are  inadequate,  they  are  open  to  correc- 
tion ;  but  it  is  idle  to  sneer  at  them  for  being  what  they  must 
be,  if  religious  facts  and  truths  are  to  be  followed  out  by  the 
thoughts  and  expressed  by  the  language  of  man. ' '  *" 

The  higher  problems  of  preaching  involved  in  this  account 
of  dogma  have  to  be  solved  by  ministers  who  are  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  teachings  of  Holy  Scripture  and  with  the 
facts  and  laws  of  mental  and  moral  being.     It  may  be  said  in 

10  Occasional  Papers;  Vol.  II,  p.  458. 


228  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

parenthesis  that  while  you  cultivate  that  acquaintance,  you 
should  sweep  the  cupboard  bare  of  what  provender  you  have 
to  give  your  people,  and  replenish  it  after  each  disbursement 
with  further  supplies.  The  pulpit's  wealth  is  not  in  any  de- 
posit of  hoarded  truths,  but  in  its  immediate  circulation  of 
thought  based  upon  things,  new  and  old,  out  of  its  treasury; 
and  the  minister's  influence  consists  in  the  constant  com- 
munity of  ideas  between  him  and  his  hearers.  The  future  of 
preaching  will  be  gravely  imperiled  if  theological  questions 
are  left  to  be  fought  out  between  reckless  changes  and  rancor- 
ous opposition  to  all  change.  You  must  be  ready  to  mediate, 
to  reconcile,  to  watch  for  the  larger  transitions  that  come 
silently  and  apace,  and  are  comparable  with  the  mysterious 
transmutation  that  overtook  the  primitive  Church  when  the 
Brotherhood  became  a  world-Ecclesia,  and  was  literally  made 
over  into  forms  better  adapted  to  the  persistent  aims  of  its  life. 
Organization,  polity,  doctrine,  teaching  were  taken  in  detail 
from  the  material  at  hand,  while  the  continuity  of  testimony 
was  maintained.  Likewise,  the  recent  developments  of  re- 
ligion into  new  combinations  of  thought  and  procedure,  which 
have  already  been  discussed,  sprang  up  with  tropical  sudden- 
ness and  vigor.  Instead  of  taking  what  apparently  was  their 
prearranged  course,  they  branched  off  in  different  or  entirely 
opposite  directions;  and  some  godly  men  are  grievously  dis- 
mayed by  this  scattering  of  forces.  Yet  the  points  of  bifurca- 
tion are  decisive  ones,  where  the  alert  and  scholarly  interven- 
tion of  a  trained  ministry  should  be  felt.  You  must  absorb 
the  benefits  of  such  change  without  its  wastes  and  eccentrici- 
ties, and  to  that  end  know  the  historic  creeds,  not  as  perfect 
expressions  of  the  beliefs  of  the  Church,  but  as  ''milestones 
marking  her  still  unfinished  progress. ' '  The  despised  theolog- 
ical sermon  can  be  made  a  vital  utterance  with  propositions 
setting  forth  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  in  its  daylight,  not  in 
the  mists  of  unintelligent  emotion. 

The  Faith  we  inherit  stands  forever  in  the  strength  of 
Heaven,  and  we  need  have  no  fear  that  it  will  falter.  Never- 
theless, we  have  to  advocate  it  wisely  if  we  would  attract  and 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      229 

win  our  generation.  The  worst  blows  inflicted  upon  its  intel- 
lectual stability  have  been  dealt  from  within  by  cheap  em- 
pirics, who  deny  that  right  beliefs  are  the  surest  foundations 
of  life.  The  past  and  present  of  Christianity  refute  this  opin- 
ion. Live  in  them  both,  and  cause  both  to  live  in  others.  If 
the  past  has  at  intervals  been  tyrannical,  a  more  thorough 
knowledge  of  it  is  the  surest  emancipation  from  its  predomi- 
nance now ;  if  the  present  crowds  you,  relate  it  with  the  past 
to  repel  its  undue  intrusion.  The  preacher,  who  adjusts  all 
his  inward  experiences  and  acquirements  to  the  lordship  of 
Christ,  will  best  sustain  the  ambassadorship  of  a  universal 
Gospel  for  mankind,  and  handle  with  increasing  skill  and  for 
purposed  results  the  spiritual  questions  that  transcend  men's 
utmost  thought. 

Ill 

It  has  been  suggested  that  preaching  should  be  largely  con- 
fined to  specially  trained  men  who  would  undertake  the  duties 
of  the  pulpit,  leaving  those  of  the  pastorate  to  the  rest  of  the 
clergy,  who,  in  turn,  would  be  relieved  of  what  is  frequently 
an  excessive  burden.  This  is  done  to  an  extent  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  where  the  Jesuit  Fathers  enjoy  a  deserved 
reputation  as  sacred  orators,  and  are  frequently  called  upon 
to  conduct  parochial  missions  or  to  preach  on  special  occasions. 
Some  well-known  ministers  of  Protestantism  also  itinerate  in 
a  similar  manner,  and  their  presence  and  message  are  of  ben- 
efit to  many  churches  and  to  English-speaking  lands.  But 
such  a  practice,  although  having  its  merits,  could  not  become 
general  without  injuring  the  efficiency  of  the  pulpit.  No  man 
can  preach  to  your  flock  as  you  can,  who  share  its  joys  and 
sorrows,  successes  and  failures,  hopes  and  anxieties.  Between 
you  and  your  parishioners  is  the  unbreakable  bond  of  a  mu- 
tual sympathy  and  affection ;  you  understand  them  as  does  no 
outsider,  and  their  knowledge  of  you  gives  freedom  and  acces- 
sibility to  what  you  have  to  say.  There  are  always  missing 
links  to  be  supplied  in  every  parish,  ragged  homes  to  mend, 
dens  of  wickedness  to  cleanse,  sinful  miseries  to  counteract. 


230  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

painful  wounds  to  staunch,  and  broken  hearts  to  heal.  What 
if  you  should  have  to  curtail  bookish  pursuits  for  these  more 
imperative  undertakings?  No  philosophical  disquisition  can 
compare  with  them  for  illuminating  effects;  and  the  minister 
who  is  willing  to  be  reckoned  foolish  for  their  sake  will  not 
lose  by  the  hazard.  The  tenderness  and  wisdom  with  which  he 
approaches  human  needs  are  imparted  to  him  by  his  affection- 
ate interest  in  his  fellow  men.  They  readily  pardon  occasional 
breaks  in  his  argument  if  they  know  that  he  personifies  pure 
and  undefiled  religion.  The  intuitions  and  intimations  which 
cannot  be  acquired  by  rule  or  rote  are  produced  or  at  least 
developed  by  the  pressure  of  your  pastoral  duties.  A  fresh 
vision  of  God  awaits  you  in  every  sick  chamber  which  faces 
toward  the  eternities,  and  the  steadfast  confidence  which  many 
of  your  parishioners  display  in  the  hour  of  death  confirms 
your  own  faith.  Here  practice  verifies  doctrine;  the  truths 
you  preach  are  re-animated,  and  your  commission  to  proclaim 
them  is  renewed.  Forge  the  articles  of  your  creed  in  the  fur- 
nace of  affliction;  fashion  them  beneath  the  hammer  of  sur- 
rounding exigencies.  A  habitually  vivid  sense  of  the  Invisible 
is  your  chief  spiritual  faculty ;  and  if  it  needs  retirement  for 
its  clarity,  it  also  needs  the  invigorating  air  of  daily  life  for 
its  stimulus.  Preaching  is  an  expression  not  of  the  pedant  or 
the  pedagogue  and  never  of  the  mere  official,  but  of  the  whole 
man  as  well  as  of  his  beliefs.  It  spares  no  part  of  us,  and,  even 
at  that,  the  openings  for  its  message  are  all  too  narrow.  The 
larger  your  faculties,  the  wider  your  sympathy,  the  deeper 
your  insight,  the  more  numerous  will  be  the  responsive  chords 
you  evoke  from  your  fellowmen.  Would  that  this  were  more 
strongly  felt  by  us  all !  I  have  often  been  made  aware  of  the 
hindrance  to  my  pastoral  and  pulpit  work  caused  by  my  ignor- 
ance of  surrounding  souls  and  their  actual  circumstances. 
One  looks  daily  upon  a  thousand  homes  in  which  men,  women 
and  children  are  endeavoring  to  live  decently  and  coura- 
geously. What  cheerful  sacrifices  they  make,  what  toils  they 
readily  sustain,  what  fortitude  they  display!  They,  too,  are 
trees  of  life  planted  by  the  rivers  of  God  and  bearing  all  man- 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      231 

ner  of  fruits.  The  inspiration  they  convey  would  sweep  one 's 
sermons  into  ampler  spheres  did  one  but  possess  it.  We  can- 
not always  be  at  their  right  hand,  but  those  who  have  granted 
me  that  grace  have  enabled  me  to  realize  that  I  was  no  longer 
alone,  that  I  had  allies  among  the  rich  and  the  poor ;  and  that 
what  I  had  to  say  to  them  must  never  be  insensible  to  the  in- 
scrutable mystery  in  which  human  lives  are  rooted. 

The  antagonistic  elements  of  a  parish  are  not  without 
their  advantages  for  the  preacher.  The  patient  tact  which 
opponents  exact  from  you  is  a  part  of  your  ministerial  educa- 
tion. Many  a  clergyman  has  been  enervated  by  the  relaxing 
air  of  a  sycophantic  environment.  He  becomes  a  precious  or- 
acle rather  than  a  human  being,  irascible  when  challenged,  and 
inclined  toward  pomposity  instead  of  amenability.  Cross- 
grained  or  eccentric  individuals  are  not  cheerful  company, 
but  they  can  be  used  to  further  your  facility  for  fellowship. 
The  reputed  good  things  of  clerical  life  are  often  its  masked 
foes ;  and  though  they  fall  to  some  ministers  like  the  ripe  apple 
from  the  tree,  the  aftertaste  of  that  famous  fruit  has  not 
always  been  sweet.  Edmund  Burke  rejoiced  that  at  every  step 
of  his  career  he  was  forced  to  stop  and  show  his  passports. 
His  contemporary  Horace  Walpole  had  no  such  delay  but 
drove  along  an  open  road  in  a  handsome  coach-and-four, 
his  outriders  blowing  a  merry  blast  while  the  obsequious 
crowds  applauded  and  doffed  their  hats  to  the  elegant  man 
of  fashion  and  of  letters.  Yet  we  now  perceive  that  it  was  not 
to  his  great  genius  alone  that  Burke 's  elevation  over  Walpole 
should  be  ascribed,  but  also  to  the  compulsion  of  an  adverse 
fate.  The  vigor  and  influence  of  your  ministry  are  frequently 
evoked  by  a  similar  stress,  and  await  you  in  the  most  unlikely 
places  and  the  most  unaraiable  persons.  In  the  attempt  to 
evade  discomfort  and  hardship  many  a  clergyman's  honor  and 
usefulness  have  been  walled  in.  Hence  I  advise  you  to  antici- 
pate censorious  critics  and  disputatious  hearers,  that  you  may 
change  their  outlook  at  whatever  cost  to  personal  ease,  so 
long  as  a  moral  breach  is  not  involved.  Your  conciliatory  at- 
titude toward  divergent  spirits  and  your  willingness  to  hear 


232  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

with  equanimity  the  burden  of  their  separated  minds,  test 
your  manhood,  and  constitute  one  of  the  rarest  tributes  you 
can  offer  to  your  calling.  It  is  a  cowardly  prejudice  that 
beats  a  hasty  retreat  from  uncongenial  homes  to  nestle  in  those 
where  your  undoubted  gifts  and  graces  are  gratefully  admired 
and  the  sorry  fact  lamented  that  you  are  not  better  appreci- 
ated by  daring  fault-finders.  Browning  states  the  philosophy 
of  opposition  when  he  tells  us  to 

".  .  .  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand  but  go  I 
Be  our  joy  three-parts  pain ! 
Strive,  and  hold  cheap  the  strain; 
Learn,  nor  account  the  pang;  dare,  never  grudge  the 
throe !" 

After  all,  your  aim  is  victory,  not  immunity,  and  a  good  sol- 
dier of  Jesus  Christ  will  find  it  more  conducive  to  success  to 
encounter  the  contradictions  of  sinners  rather  than  the  ful- 
some flattery  of  foolish  admirers.  "When  such  bespatter  his 
feeblest  efforts  with  false  praise  and  refrain  from  taxing  him 
with  palpable  errors,  let  him  seek  a  more  bracing  atmosphere. 
It  is  on  the  tented  field,  amid  your  comrades  in  the  common 
strife,  that  you  rid  your  arms  of  rust,  shake  off  dull  sloth 
and  devouring  pride,  and  find  the  loyal  surroundings,  the 
manly  homage  to  manhood,  the  staunch  support  and  friendly 
differences,  which  are  alike  honorable  to  those  who  render  and 
to  him  who  receives  them. 

In  conclusion,  move  with  fearlessness,  frankness  and  urban- 
ity among  every  rank  and  condition,  and  tell  of  your  greatest 
spiritual  dreams  and  exaltations  in  a  human  tone.  Be  fer- 
vid without  being  the  victim  of  fervor.  Condense  your  ideals 
to  an  efficient  method  by  strokes  of  good  sense,  and  retain  in 
your  personal  relationships  the  wisdom  and  charity  which 
mark  the  priest  and  prophet  of  souls.  Of  all  kinds  of  service 
yours,  when  rightly  undertaken,  is  the  most  intimate,  uni- 
versal, free  from  artifice,  honest  and  straightforward  in  its 


IDEALS  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY      233 

appeal.  Gather  with  those  to  whom  it  is  proffered  on  terms 
of  equality,  asking  for  no  benefit  of  clergy.  You  may  not 
realize  every  hope,  and  it  is  useless  to  expect  that  your  course 
will  always  be  acclaimed.  Progress,  even  when  legitimate,  is 
won  only  by  battling,  and  for  each  forward  step  mankind  has 
taken  toll  of  sacrificial  spirits  consecrated  to  its  highest  good. 
In  the  conflict  with  evil  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  an  imme- 
diate and  decisive  victory  which  realizes  all  your  hopes.  But 
to  you  it  is  given  to  cast  the  seed  of  a  happier  future  in  the 
furrows  of  a  needy  present;  to  remove  the  obstacles  created 
by  worldly  indifference  and  mere  religiosity.  Be  watchful, 
patient,  serene;  with  your  modest  lamp  always  lit  and 
trimmed,  shining  in  dark  places  and  cheering  and  guiding 
tired  wayfarers  on  their  journey.  Suffer  no  gusts  of  unreg- 
ulated passion  to  extinguish  its  light,  no  careless  or  indolent 
habits  to  rob  it  of  its  oil.  The  sober  earnest  temper,  withal 
cheerful  and  sanguine,  of  a  true  bondservant  of  Christ  will  the 
more  speedily  bring  the  incredulous  masses  into  the  Kingdom. 
The  devoted  minister  sets  truth  above  purchase,  and  the  sanc- 
tity of  inner  life  above  all  outward  things.  However  wide 
his  moral  knowledge  or  brilliant  his  intellectual  attainments, 
he  does  not  eschew  those  virtues  of  the  common  mind  and 
conscience  which  make  human  fellowship  a  divine  reality. 
Thus  does  he  become  a  man  whom  God  can  use  for  the  loft- 
iest purposes,  upon  whom  others  can  lean  in  their  distress, 
finding  in  him  the  elevating  friendship  due  to  an  enduring 
faith  and  a  virtuous  example.  He  then  is  the  chosen,  the 
blessed  ambassador  of  God  who  is  determined 

"To  have  to  do  with  nothing  but  the  true, 
The  good,  the  eternal — and  these,  not  alone 
In  the  main  current  of  the  general  life, 
But  small  experience  of  every  day 
Concerns  of  the  particular  hearth  and  home: 
To  learn  not  only  by  a  comet's  rush 
But  a  rose's  birth — not  by  the  grandeur,  God, 
But  by  the  comfort,  Christ." 


CHAPTER  VII 
PREACHING:  ITS  PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE 


Now  it  came  to  pass,  while  the  multitude  pressed  upon  him  and 
heard  the  word  of  God,  that  he  was  standing  by  the  lake  of  Gen- 
nesaret;  and  he  saw  two  boats  standing  by  the  lake:  but  the  fisher- 
men had  gone  out  of  them,  and  were  washing  their  nets.  And  he 
entered  one  of  the  boats,  which  was  Simon's,  and  asked  him  to  put 
out  a  little  from  the  land.  And  he  sat  down  and  taught  the  multi- 
tudes out  of  the  boat.  And  when  he  had  left  speaking,  he  said  unto 
Simon,  Put  out  into  the  deep,  and  let  down  your  nets  for  a  draught. 
And  Simon  answered  and  said.  Master,  we  toiled  all  night,  and  took 
nothing:  but  at  thy  word  I  will  let  down  the  nets.  And  when  they 
had  done  this,  they  inclosed  a  great  multitude  of  fishes;  and  their 
nets  were  breaking;  and  they  beckoned  unto  their  partners  in  the 
other  boat,  that  they  should  come  and  help  them.  And  they  came, 
and  filled  both  the  boats,  so  that  they  began  to  sink.  But  Simon 
Peter,  when  he  saw  it,  fell  do\\Ti  at  Jesus'  knees,  saying,  Depart 
from  me;  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0  Lord.  For  he  was  amazed, 
and  all  that  were  with  him,  at  the  draught  of  the  fishes  which  they 
had  taken;  and  so  were  also  James  and  John,  sons  of  Zebedee,  who 
were  partners  with  Simon.  And  Jesus  said  unto  Simon,  Fear  not; 
from  henceforth  thou  shalt  catch  men.  And  when  they  had  brought 
their  boats  to  land,  they  left  all,  and  followed  him. 

St.  Luke  v:l-ll. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PREACHING:   ITS   PREPARA.TION   AND  PRACTICE 

The  essentials  of  preaching — Inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit — Con- 
centration of  gifts  and  acquirements — Spiritual  ends  of  preach- 
ing— Mysticism — Knowledge  of  the  Scriptures — Mastery  of 
other  books — Definition  of  sermon — Choice  of  texts — Develop- 
ment of  subject — Orderly  arrangement  of  material — ^Methods  of 
sermonizing — Pulpit  themes. 

Lucretius  speaks  in  a  striking  figure  of  the  elevation  of 
mind  necessary  for  those  who  would  adequately  survey  the 
conflicts  encircling  them.  He  paints  the  array  of  opposing 
armies  in  the  field,  the  gleam  of  their  burnished  armor,  the 
charging  squadrons  that  seem  to  shake  the  solid  earth.  But 
on  the  far-off  hills  is  a  tranquil  eminence  from  which  the  hur- 
rying legions  appear  as  if  they  stood  still,  and  the  flash  and 
fury  of  battle  blend,  as  it  were,  in  one  sheet  of  steady  flame. 
One  who  would  draw  apart  from  the  chaotic  struggle  of  life 
in  order  to  make  its  meaning  more  clear,  by  showing  how 
its  various  relations  stand  toward  one  another,  may  well  covet 
some  such  elevation  as  Lucretius  portrayed.  The  detachment 
it  affords  is  also  an  absolute  essential  for  a  correct  observation 
of  the  ceaseless  warfare  of  the  Church  against  sin,  and  for 
our  examination  of  the  equipment  requisite  for  its  successful 
prosecution.  Those  who  essay  these  tasks  should  pattern  aftef 
Milton  and  first  offer  devout  prayer  to  the  Eternal  Spirit, 
Who  can  enrich  all  utterance  and  knowledge,  and  Who  sends 
out  His  seraphim  with  the  hallowed  fire  of  His  altar  to  touch 
and  purify  the  lips  of  whom  He  pleases.  It  is  the  inspiration 
of  the  Indwelling  Paraclete  promised  by  Christ  to  the  infant 
Ecclesia  as  His  Successor,  that  makes  its  recipients  free  of  all 
worlds  and  upraises  them  to  those  heights  of  thought  and 

237 


238  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

vision  which  dominate  the  lower  levels  of  human  life.  His 
Person  and  work  in  the  Church  and  in  the  world  are  too 
little  known  or  appreciated  to-day.  Yet  let  but  the  unction 
from  the  Holy  One  anoint  any  ambassador  of  Heaven,  and 
his  word  is  at  once  transfused  with  divine  energy  and  illum- 
inated with  divine  wisdom.  The  vivid  consciousness  of  unseen 
things,  the  spiritual  electricity  that  thrills  the  heart  of  the 
audience,  the  solemn  stillness  in  which  the  Eternal  voice  is 
heard  by  the  waiting  throng,  the  calm  assurance  that  gives 
your  office  an  indisputable  power,  are  manifestations  of  the 
presence  of  the  Spirit,  proclamations  of  His  sovereignty  in 
the  preacher  and  his  message.  "In  Jerusalem,  and  in  all 
Judea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth,"  His  ever  expanding  ministry  decrees  the  truths  by 
which  preaching  has  continued  to  this  day.  You  do  not  have 
to  wait  for  His  enduement  until  you  have  ransacked  the  last 
recesses  of  theology  and  metaphysics.  There  is  for  every 
preacher  an  Advent,  if  he  will  but  accept  it,  which  is  the 
beginning  of  the  divine  life  within  his  life,  and  a  Pentecost, 
when  the  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  his  heart  by  the  Spirit. 
Thus  the  supreme  hour  comes  for  Him  Who  is  the  final  ex- 
pression of  the  divine  mercy,  and  your  morning  dawns  for  a 
service  which  He  makes  more  blessed  as  the  years  pass. 
There  cannot  be  any  sufficient  preparation  for  the  pulpit  that 
does  not  find  its  Alpha  and  Omega  in  the  Spirit.  His  indwell- 
ing is  your  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  of  fire  by  night. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  is  ensphered  in  the  mystery  of 
personality,  both  human  and  divine,  and  it  is  scarcely  neces- 
sary to  say  that  no  such  doctrine  can  possibly  be  ultimate,  since 
were  it  commensurate  with  the  truth  involved,  it  would  be  far 
too  comprehensive  for  our  faculties.  The  operations  of  the 
hidden  God  of  the  heart  are  viewless  as  the  winds,  yet,  like 
them,  animating  and  refreshing,  and  as  essential  to  the  life  of 
the  soul  as  those  are  to  that  of  the  body.  The  name  of  Deity, 
which  includes  for  Christians  the  personal  reality  of  the  Spirit, 
is  the  most  symbolic  of  all  names,  carrying  with  it  profundities 
that  "no  house  of  words  builded  by  man  can  contain,"  and 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  239 

Joubert's  comment  that  it  is  not  hard  to  believe  in  God  pro- 
vided one  does  not  attempt  to  define  Him  is  entirely  apposite 
in  this  connection.  Nevertheless,  it  is  one  of  the  distinctive 
traits  of  New  Testament  teaching  that  it  does,  in  part,  define 
God,  and  never  more  explicitly  than  in  the  wcrds  of  Christ 
concerning  the  Spirit  as  the  Universal  Witness  "Who  speaks, 
not  of  Himself,  but  of  the  Father  and  the  Son, — the  Indwell- 
ing, Self-communicating  God  Who  leads  you  into  all  truth 
and  holiness. 

While  the  Christian  ideal  and  its  graces  and  virtues  are 
the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  His  influence  can  also  be  traced  in  the 
Pagan  ethics  which  made  man  the  center  of  existence.  There 
is  a  pregnant  sense  in  which,  their  contributions  to  the  higher 
being  of  the  race  were  prompted  and  harmonized  by  Him. 
When  you  leave  the  worn  and  trampled  areas  of  dogmatic 
conflict,  prolific  of  misunderstanding  and  controversy',  and 
occupy  the  points  of  vantage  indicated  by  that  prince  of 
Hellenic  Christian  fathers,  Justin  Martyr,  you  perceive,  as  he 
did,  that  **  stoic,  poet,  philosopher  spoke  well  in  proportion  to 
the  share  they  had  received  of  the  Spermatic  Word."  The 
tides  of  the  Spirit  ebbed  and  flowed  in  Socrates,  Plato,  Aris- 
tides,  Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius  and  the  Catos.  They  in- 
culcated admirable  theories,  rarely  translated  into  practice 
and  good  intentions  that  fell  far  short  of  action.  But  their 
best  answers  to  the  endless  questionings  of  human  conscious- 
ness were  not  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of,  and  in  those 
answers  the  "Nearer  Immanence"  is  indicated,  which  solves 
many  spiritual  problems.  You  should  not  be  coerced  by  one- 
eyed  retrospects  of  racial  religious  evolution,  wliich  are  un- 
mindful of  the  broader  economies  of  the  Spirit's  administra- 
tion of  truth.  His  prevenient  grace  was  repeatedly  mani- 
fested in  the  strong  undertow  of  Idealism  which  restrained  the 
menacing  floods  of  pagan  lust  and  godlessness,  and  diverted 
the  deeper  stream  of  humanity  from  plunging  into  a  Dead  Sea 
of  ruin  and  blank  despair. 

But  the  largest  good  of  the  work  of  the  Spirit  in  moral  and 
religious  experience  belongs  to  the  planting  and  training  of 


240  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  Christian  Church,  and  its  generous  activities  among  the 
peoples  of  the  earth.  His  ministry  in  the  earliest  followers 
of  Jesus,  and  in  the  periodical  revivals  which  subsequently 
swept  over  the  Church,  is  the  most  palpable  indication  of  His 
presence  in  her  children.  Treatises  upon  the  Third  Person  of 
the  Trinity  are  seldom  more  than  speculative,  but  that  He  has 
energized  every  Christian  epoch  cannot  be  denied  without  do- 
ing violence  to  historic  facts.  Von  Dobschiitz  describes  the 
Apostolic  period  as  one  of  full  communion  with  the  Spirit, 
"Who  aroused  in  the  Galilean  fishermen  * '  an  incredible  enthus- 
iasm," which  quickened  and  exalted  its  participants.  Pale, 
tremulous  hearts  which  had  so  recently  quaked  with  fear  now 
glowed  with  a  courage  that  bravely  confronted  vindictive  rul- 
ers and  an  embruted  populace.  Ready  utterance,  resolute 
bearing,  sacrificial  devotion,  the  abandon  of  the  saint  and  the 
fortitude  of  the  martyr,  attested  the  supremacy  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  first  heralds  of  the  Crucified  Redeemer.  They  wrought 
wonders,  removed  mountainous  obstacles,  transformed  op- 
pressed helots  into  a  cloud  of  witnessing  heroes,  and  showed 
to  the  languid  gaze  of  an  expiring  civilization  the  rainbow 
of  promise  that  encircled  the  Cross.  The  renewal  of  Chris- 
tian preaching  during  its  great  period  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries;  the  purification  of  European  life  and  morals 
-by  the  earlier  monks  and  friars  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries;  the  religious  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century 
and  the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
further  demonstrations  of  the  Spirit 's  presence  in  the  Church. 
Her  doctors,  thinkers  and  rulers  have  also  enunciated  at  His 
bidding  first  one  and  then  another  of  the  great  verities  which 
she  holds  in  perpetuity  for  the  world.  Each  theological  era 
produced  after  its  kind ;  all  subserved  one  inclusive,  immutable 
purpose.  The  Greek  Fathers  centered  their  meditations  upon 
the  Person  of  our  Lord ;  the  Latin  Fathers  magnified  the  right- 
eousness of  the  divine  government ;  the  medieeval  Popes  sought 
to  consolidate  the  Empire  of  Christ  in  a  world-wide  organiza- 
tion; the  Schoolmen  endeavored  to  annex  secular  to  sacred 
knowledge  and  to  enclose  both  kinds  in  the  Aristotelian  formu- 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  241 

las ;  the  Reformers  returned  in  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God 
to  the  Pauline  conception  of  Justification  by  Faith,  Viewed 
separately  by  those  who  pander  to  dissonance  and  indulge 
preferences  for  the  part  as  against  the  whole,  these  phases  of 
religious  and  ecclesiastical  change  and  growth  excite  the  an- 
tagonisms which  disfigure  the  history  of  the  Faith.  Yet  much 
of  that  history  is  exhausted  by  movements  which  the  Spirit 
originated  and  controlled  in  behalf  of  divine  purposes.  Mod- 
ernism, using  the  term  in  its  generic  sense,  has  many  grave 
misdirections,  but  it,  too,  is  subordinated  to  the  sway  of  the  In- 
dwelling Spirit  Who  presides  over  the  extensions  of  the  King- 
dom, determines  the  complex  but  steady  evolution  of  society, 
and  evokes  from  manifold  sources  those  Christian  interpreta- 
tions of  life  that  have  ennobled  the  thinking  of  successive 
generations. 

From  the  sub-Apostolic  age,  when  the  ripest  culture  then 
available  was  made  subsidiary  to  the  New  Testament  Evangel, 
to  present  day  theology,  poetry  and  philosophy,  the  mainte- 
nance of  man's  fellowship  with  his  Maker,  of  his  actual  occu- 
pation by  what  has  been  called  "the  Within  from  Beyond," 
have  been  the  vestibule  to  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  which  He  for- 
ever dwells  who  convinces  the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness, 
and  of  judgment  to  come.  Not  alone  in  thought,  as  with 
Spinoza  and  Hegel;  nor  in  feeling,  as  with  Schleiermacher ; 
nor  in  will,  as  with  Kant,  but  in  the  individual  and  the  race 
alike,  and  in  their  several  gifts  and  capacities,  does  the  Spirit 
operate,  fusing  them  with  a  divine  synthesis,  the  manifesta- 
tions of  which  are  love,  justice,  compassion,  and  most  of  all, 
the  grace  of  God  that  regenerates  and  purifies  believers.  How 
vitally  important  then  is  your  personal  cooperation  with  the 
Spirit  Who  is  the  larger  self  of  the  prophets  of  God?  The 
consciousness  of  His  indwelling  and  the  eager  desire  to  realize 
its  fulness  stimulate  and  discipline  the  preaching  mind,  de- 
termine its  religious  development  and  the  range  and  quality 
of  its  prophetic  instinct.  But  though  His  winds  blow  where 
they  list,  the  undedicated  heart  is  not  apt  to  feel  them. 
Stretch  every  sail  to  their  favoring  gales ;  foster  the  ambition 


242  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

to  be  men  of  that  pentecostal  ordination  which  is  the  gift  of 
the  Spirit. 

Unfortunately  the  number  of  volumes  which  expound  Scrip- 
tural teaching  upon  this  subject  is  all  too  scanty,  but  the  few 
we  possess  are,  in  the  main,  of  excellent  quality.  After  the 
work  of  Basil  the  Great,  De  Spiritu  Sancto,  there  is  a  long  in- 
terval of  comparative  silence  which  two  still  readable  Puri- 
tan divines,  John  Owen  and  John  Goodwin,  were  almost  the 
first  to  break.  They  were  the  forerunners  of  well  known  and 
competent  authors  like  Julius  Charles  Hare,  William  Ar- 
thur, Doctors  Swete,  Walker,  Orr,  Illingworth  and  Kuyper, 
Baron  Von  Hugel  and  Principal  W.  T.  Davison.  The  Tongue 
of  Fire,  by  William  Arthur,  is  a  classic  of  Evangelical 
literature  which  has  been  an  inspiration  to  thousands  of  min- 
isters of  all  denominations.  It  searches  and  humbles  the  heart 
of  the  preacher  in  order  that  it  may  deepen  his  knowledge  of 
the  Spirit 's  transforming  power.  The  dissertations  of  some 
other  writers  who  have  been  named  are  pervaded  by  a  fine  in- 
tellectualism,  but  they  are  neither  so  erudite  in  treatment  nor 
remote  in  temper  as  to  surrender  to  mere  abstractions  the  hun- 
ger of  the  soul  for  closer  intercourse  with  its  Maker.  Prin- 
cipal Davison 's  volume.  The  Indwelling  Spirit,  evinces  a  phil- 
osophical and  ethical  scholarship  of  the  highest  order  combined 
with  ardent  devotional  feeling  and  exegetical  fidelity,  which 
enable  him  to  restate  the  doctrine  of  the  Comforter  and  His 
Mission  in  a  manner  worthy  of  your  serious  attention,  as  is 
also  the  volume  of  Essays,  The  Spirit,  edited  by  B.  H. 
Streeter. 

The  second  essential  of  the  preacher's  preparation  is  a  pre- 
determination to  make  every  path  he  pursues  lead  directly  to 
the  pulpit.  Beecher  came  to  Brooklyn,  a  young  divine  as  yet 
unknown  to  fame,  somewhat  suspect  because  of  his  advanced 
views,  but  resolved,  in  his  own  words,  "that  every  chime  in 
his  belfry  should  ring  for  Christ, ' '  and  soon  the  resonant  peal- 
ings  of  his  glorious  eloquence  were  heard  around  the  globe. 
Men  much  less  gifted  than  Beecher,  who  nevertheless  were 
intent  upon  the  same  end,  and  averse  to  passing  impressions 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  243 

and  useless  emotions,  have  accomplished  more  than  they 
ever  dared  to  hope.  Ferdinand  Foch,  Marshal  of  France, 
tells  us  that  he  wasted  no  strength  in  speculating  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  needs  of  the  hour,  but  rehearsed  his  military  strat- 
egies for  over  forty  years  and  then  thrust  them  when  the  hour 
struck  into  one  famous  and  triumphant  effort.  If  the  soldier 
thus  schools  himself  until  the  opportune  moment  comes ;  if  the 
thinker  laboriously  conceives  his  metaphysics  and  spares  no 
pains  for  its  elaboration ;  if  the  artist  feels  obligated  to  select 
the  choicest  means  of  expression;  surely  the  Christian 
preacher,  who  is  supposed  to  exemplify  the  religion  of  sacri- 
fice, cannot  hope  to  be  tolerated  if  he  deliberately  shirks  the 
demands  of  his  calling.  His  response  to  them  must  be  imme- 
diate, unconditional,  a  submission  which  ripens  into  an  un- 
wavering dedication.  Let  him  once  sink  into  carelessness  or 
evasion  and  he  is  automatically  excluded  from  the  best  pos- 
sibilities of  preaching.  Mistaken  pulpiteers,  who  could  not 
distrust  learning  so  distressingly  did  they  but  know  it  better, 
and  self-suflticient  brain-worshipers  who  enter  the  sanctuary 
sublimely  unconscious  of  its  spiritual  mysteries,  are  alike  in- 
imical to  your  vocation.  These  types  have  accentuated  the 
twofold  reproach  that  the  Church  lags  in  the  intellectual 
march  of  mankind  or  attempts  to  run  a  schism  through  the  uni- 
verse of  God.  Yet  there  always  have  been  ambassadors  of 
His,  prophets  indeed  and  of  a  truth,  imbued  with  the  sancti- 
ties both  of  faith  and  knowledge,  who  heralded  the  imperish- 
able values  of  the  spiritual  life  and  vindicated  the  Church  as 
the  religious  organ  of  the  world.  Pattern  after  them  by  en- 
listing every  available  resource  in  your  preaching;  enrich, 
as  they  did,  what  you  have  to  offer  to  the  countless  interpre- 
tations of  the  Gospel,  with  all  the  powers  of  your  recreated 
manhood  in  Christ.  By  so  doing  you  answer  the  imperious 
challenge  to  prepare  in  the  wilderness  a  highway  for  our  God, 
to  make  straight  His  path  in  the  desert. 

The  fully  equipped  preacher,  who  influences  for  good  the 
virile  people  and  movements  of  his  time,  is  something  more 
than  a  purveyor  of  consolations  or  a  dispenser  of  promised 


244  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

benedictions.  It  is  enough  for  ordinary  men  to  fulfil  these 
praiseworthy  oflBces,  but  the  minister  cannot  be  an  ordinary 
man  and  survive  ministerially.  He  should  become  a  con- 
structive statesman  of  God 's  commonwealth ;  the  avowed  leader 
of  his  community  and,  in  signal  instances,  of  the  nation,  in 
every  beneficent  enterprise.  No  servant  of  righteousness  can 
separate  himself  in  these  days  of  peril  from  the  insistent  cul- 
tivation which  makes  him,  in  the  language  of  South,  *'a  pal- 
ace to  entertain  Christ  and  a  castle  to  defend  Him";  a  min- 
ister of  the  prime  sort  who  requires  no  apology,  ever  foremost 
in  the  fight  against  injustice  and  wrong.  Undoubtedly,  there 
are  pitfalls  to  be  avoided  in  this  process,  superfluous  extremes 
of  pietism  which  relax  your  hold  on  actual  life,  or  sophisti- 
cated niceties  which  bespeak  the  pedant  rather  than  the 
scholar.  These  will  have  to  be  repressed  if  the  clamant  im- 
pulses of  the  preaching  heart  are  to  have  free  play.  Yet  those 
impulses  need  boundaries,  and  unless  Scripture  and  reason  reg- 
ulate them  they  usually  lapse  into  sentimentalism. 

I  am  aware  that  some  lecturers  on  homiletics  have  occasion- 
ally pitched  the  theme  too  high,  treating  their  subject  as  if 
every  student  were  destined  to  shine  as  a  pulpit  star  of  the  first 
magnitude, — a  result  as  impossible  as  it  is  undesirable,  since 
in  the  transmission  of  divine  truth  allowances  have  to  be  made 
for  the  varieties  of  human  nature.  But  the  preacher  of  one 
talent  can  always  reap  the  result  of  his  ardent  toil,  and  find 
in  what  he  garners  abundant  material  for  the  exercise  of 
thought  and  imagination.  The  annals  of  the  pulpit  show  that 
not  a  few  men  who  were  deficient  in  learning  evinced  a  superi- 
ority in  sermonic  utterance,  which  many  of  their  cultured 
brethren  surveyed  at  a  baffling  distance.  The  Author  of  your 
message  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  nor  does  He  disdain  to  in- 
spire humble  but  devoted  individuals  whom  the  severely  aca- 
demic are  prone  to  regard  unfavorably.  The  ministers  who, 
like  Wesley's  itinerants,  move  with  the  main  streams  of  hu- 
man life,  whose  diversified  sympathies  and  familiarity  with 
the  fundamentals  of  the  Gospel  atone  to  a  considerable  degree 
for  their  lack  of  educational  opportunities,  resemble  those  trees 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  245 

of  the  forest  which  for  size  and  symmetry  survive  comparison 
with  their  stately  relatives  of  the  garden  and  the  grove.  Not 
infrequently,  preachers  are  embarrassed  by  the  very  weight  of 
their  ill-used  advantages,  while  in  others  the  consciousness  of 
shortcomings  is  an  incentive  to  more  strenuous  efforts.  The 
work  of  Gipsy  Smith,  who  claims  five  continents  for  his  parish, 
illustrates  the  point  that  the  pulpit  message  chastened  by  the 
speaker's  earlier  hardships,  and  deepened  by  his  intensive 
acquaintance  with  human  nature,  will  go  far.  This  modest 
servant  of  God,  who  has  probably  addressed  more  men  and 
women  than  any  other  preacher  of  the  day,  has  the  good  sense 
to  recognize  his  limitations,  to  keep  within  them,  to  vitalize 
what  he  has  to  say  with  citations  from  his  religious  experi- 
ence, and  to  beautify  it  with  appropriate  references  to  nature 
couched  in  simple  and  chaste  language.  I  have  seldom  known 
the  technique  of  the  sermon  exhibited  more  clearly  than  by 
Gipsy  Smith.  Yet  it  should  be  stoutly  maintained  that  the 
wholesomeness  and  adequacy  of  preaching  normally  depend 
upon  the  acquisitions  of  learning  and  divinity  which  are  to 
be  disbursed  by  the  preacher.  Such  are  some  wayside  signs 
along  the  course  which  conducts  you  to  the  heart  of  your  busi- 
ness, wherein  a  light  gleams  for  you  which  some  do  not  be- 
hold, because,  like  Plato's  Troglodytes,  they  have  no  desire 
for  a  radiance  they  have  not  seen. 

The  third  essential  of  preparation  is  the  spiritual  direction 
which  must  be  given  to  the  preacher's  pre-determinations. 
Keep  their  orientation  true  to  the  heavenly  vision  from  which 
nothing  should  deflect  your  every  aim.  Baptized  into  the 
Spirit,  self-immolated  for  your  task,  intent  on  securing  the 
requisite  knowledge,  and  delivered  from  the  notion  that  half 
measures  can  avail,  you  have  still  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
secret  of  effective  pulpit  utterance  remains  more  or  less  un- 
revealed.  Men  who  have  not  allowed  the  fervors  of  an  early 
piety  to  die  down  for  want  of  labor  and  of  prayer,  know 
that  their  greatest  effects  are  not  produced  by  concrete  rules, 
which  have  but  to  be  obeyed  to  insure  those  effects.  Whether 
you  prepare  yourself  or  merely  your  sermons,  or  what  is 


246  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

infinitely  better,  both,  you  will  soon  discover  the  truth  of 
Goethe's  lines  in  Fa/ust: 

"All  theory,  my  friend,  is  gray, 

But  green  is  life's  bright  golden  tree." 

However  finely  woven,  the  dragnet  of  homiletical  science  does 
not  retain  the  subtle  elements  of  personality,  the  thoughts 
beyond  the  accustomed  compass  of  the  mind,  the  ethereal 
moods  and  sublimated  emotions  of  preachers  whose  creative 
moments  are  bom  from  above.  They  have  often  thrust  aside 
the  stated  rules  that  are  supposed  to  govern  pulpit  discourse, 
and  what  they  then  advanced  was  not  of  that  sibylline 
character  which  puzzles  the  hearer,  but  a  sure  word, 
voiced  by  a  master  of  assemblies  and  driven  home  with  re- 
generative strength  to  the  hearts  of  the  congregation.  On 
the  other  hand,  preachers  addicted  to  a  sensationalism  united 
with  superficiality,  or  to  a  formalism  which  fences  about  stale 
dogma,  or  to  a  traditionalism  native  to  the  tongue  but  foreign 
to  experience,  feel  no  special  difficulty  in  furnishing  you  with 
the  methods  which  they  deem  necessary  to  successful  sermon- 
izing. But  the  visioned  preacher,  while  grateful  for  every 
legitimate  aid,  fights  shy  of  codes  and  prescriptions,  because 
he  feels  himself  committed  to  a  Gospel  which  surpasses  human 
thought.  Warned  against  the  half  knowledge  in  which  un- 
tutored faith  stagnates,  he  craves  the  Scriptural  truths  and 
principles  that  lend  themselves  to  striking  applications,  and 
assimilates  them  until  they  become  a  part  of  himself.  He 
accepts  the  vastness  implicated  in  the  modem  view  of  the 
Universe,  but  the  acceptance  is  qualified  by  his  trust  in  the 
Sovereign  of  all  worlds.  Whose  writ  runs  throughout  their 
stupendous  frame.  His  best  utterances  reveal  the  summits 
of  the  enraptured  spirit,  which  are  upheld  by  the  strength 
of  the  reasoning  mind.  His  upward  progress  from  argument 
to  exhortation  and  appeal  is  assured  by  his  intimacy  with  the 
inward  and  outward  evidences  of  divine  truth.  It  is  his 
prerogative  to  ascend  the  hill  of  the  Lord,  to  stand  in  His 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  247 

secret  place  and  there  to  receive  the  inspiration  which  gives 
wings  to  his  speech. 

No  preacher  can  reach  that  eminence  without  prayer,  which 
when  practiced  as  a  habit  and  not  merely  as  a  stated  exercise 
infuses  in  the  human  clay  those  celestial  tempers  that  soften 
and  mellow  it,  making  it  more  plastic  to  refined  spiritual  im- 
pressions than  the  coarser  fiber  of  the  natural  man.  You  can 
detect  the  parasite  beneath  the  prophet's  garb  of  him  who 
endeavors  to  simulate  the  sanctity  which  only  constant  sup- 
plication supplies.  Intellectual  or  cesthetic  proclivities  are 
never  sufficient  substitutes  for  earnest  devoutness  of  motive 
and  deed.  True  piety  alone  gives  you  that  standing  before 
God  and  men,  which  sacerdotal  assumptions  cannot  impart 
nor  secular  invasions  destroy.  The  grace  which  emanates 
from  the  prayerful  preacher's  very  being,  has  but  to  pervade 
his  sermon  for  its  auditors  to  know  that  they  will  not  miss 
the  appointed  path.  When  it  is  absent,  entrancing  oratory 
and  bewitching  music  are  nothing  more  than  the  stupefaction 
of  real  worship.  Charles  Lamb  was  wont  to  ask  God's  blessing 
before  reading  Shakespeare.  Shall  the  genial  essayist  exceed 
in  reverence  and  piety  the  religious  advocate?  Not  so  long 
as  you  recall  that  prayer  is  your  guide  to  God  through  Christ 
the  Living  Way,  when  offered  in  the  Spirit  Who  makes  in- 
tercession for  you.  Your  divine  assistance  in  studying 
Holy  Writ,  and  while  the  sermon  is  still  on  the  anvil,  and 
when  it  is  being  delivered,  comes  from  prayer.  You  are  not 
primarily  wanted  in  the  pulpit  as  logicians  and  philosophers, 
but  as  expert  impressionists,  who  graphically  portray  the 
wonders  of  divine  love  which  have  captured  your  heart  and 
mind.  What  you  give  forth  there  is  the  thinly  veiled  ex- 
pression of  your  subjective  life,  its  disappointments,  hopes 
and  achievements.  It  is  the  hidden  man  of  the  heart  and 
not  the  official  which  counts.  The  sentences  transcribed  from 
the  records  of  your  own  soul  are  those  that  penetrate  other 
souls  like  arrows  sped  to  the  mark.  The  anatomy  of  the  ser- 
mon consists  in  what  you  know  about  the  text,  but  its  life  is 
derived  from  that  fellowship  with  God  which  is  the  outcome 


248  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  believing  prayer.  If  this  fellowship  was  indispensable  to 
Jesus,  Who  said,  "I  speak  the  things  which  I  have  seen  with 
my  Father, ' '  and  "  I  do  nothing  of  myself,  but  as  the  Father 
taught  me, ' '  ^  certainly  it  is  indispensable  for  every  minister 
of  His.  The  preacher  who  does  not  enter  into  it  presents  the 
woeful  spectacle  of  "the  connoisseur  in  religion  who  knows 
all  about  it  except  itself,  who  has  mastered  everything  respect- 
ing God,  but  not  yielded  his  own  spirit  to  the  Infinite 
Reality.  "2 

Personal  piety  is  not  to  be  too  openly  discussed,  provided 
it  is  inwardly  appropriated,  and  characterized  by  the  effort- 
less felicity  of  those  who  having  companied  with  their  Master 
seek  God  as  He  did  in  the  noontide  of  reality.  Richard  Bax- 
ter, himself  a  saint  who  * '  walked  closely, ' '  remarks  upon  this 
characteristic  in  the  meditations  and  poems  of  George  Herbert. 
The  seraphic  aspirations  of  the  Imitatione  of  a  Kempis,  Law's 
Serious  Call  and  Bunyan's  Grace  Abounding,  the  expositions 
and  writings  of  mystics  like  Tauler,  Boehme,  Henry  Vaughan 
and  John  Woolman,  glow  like  summer  lightning  on  the  preach- 
er's  overcast  sky,  and  remind  him  of  the  light  that  cannot 
be  extinguished.  The  works  of  the  foremost  of  modern  mys- 
tics, William  Blake,  and  the  recently  published  Gifford  Lec- 
tures of  Dean  Inge  upon  The  Philosophy  of  Plotinus  should 
receive  the  attention  from  you  to  which  their  unique  merits 
entitle  them.  Dean  Inge  discusses  in  a  scholarly  and  sympa- 
thetic way  the  life  and  ideas  of  the  last  of  ancient  thinkers 
who  was  also  the  precursor  of  mediaeval  dreamers.  Plotinus 
occupied  the  watershed  between  the  epochs  of  a  brilliant  but 
decadent  paganism  and  a  mystical  realization  of  "the  Power, 
not  ourselves,  which  makes  for  righteousness."  The  sages 
of  the  former  world  paced  the  porches  of  their  philosophy, 
at  times  half  aware  of  their  impotence  to  unfold  the  mysteries 
of  being.  From  thence  they  looked  down  upon  the  wandering 
hordes, 

"Seeking  and  never  finding  in  the  night," 

1  St.  John  viii :  28,  38. 

2  Dr.  James  Martineau :  Essays  and  Reviews,  Vol.  IV,  p.  43. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  249 

with  whom  they  had  nothing  in  common  except  a  universal 
religious  blindness.  The  contrast  between  them  and  the 
hierophants  of  Christian  mysticism  is  well  expressed  in  the 
unstudied  loveliness  and  sublimity  of  Henry  Vaughan's  lines: 

"I  saw  Eternity  .  .  . 

Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light 

As  calm  as  it  was  bright." 

The  first  of  these  epochs  bequeathed  much  that  we  cannot 
afford  to  discard,  but  Plotinus  perceived,  as  did  Matthew 
Arnold  long  afterwards,  that  men  could  not  live  upon  its 
bequests.  The  second  epoch,  ushered  in  by  Plotinus,  trans- 
lated the  native  impulses  of  elementary  piety  into  a  pur- 
posed quest  for  the  Highest  Will,  which  is  your  heritage, 
rife  with  a  religious  opulence  of  its  own.  The  affection  of 
the  mystics  for  hidden  verities,  the  contagion  of  their  fervent 
adoration,  assist  your  vision  of  the  ineffable  glories  of  the 
Divine  Being. 

Nor  are  mystics  to  be  avoided  under  the  plea  that  they  were 
impractical.^  Many  of  them  verified  the  saying,  that  saints 
are  people  who  do  ordinary  things  extraordinarily  well.  Al- 
though pioneers  in  the  Invisible  Realm,  they  were  not  found 
wanting  in  the  mastery  of  earthly  existence.  Theologians, 
preachers,  philosophers  and  philanthropists,  who  reduce  the 
necessities  and  increase  the  well-being  of  mankind,  owe  much 
to  the  mystics.  Their  yearning  for  conscious  inward  union 
with  their  Creator  or  with  His  Christ,  is  not  to  be  confused 
with  the  appetite  for  outward  wonders  and  startling  predic- 
tions found  in  their  imitators.  That  union  should  be  your 
preoccupation,  the  prize  for  which  you  ever  contend,  un- 
deterred by  the  skepticism  of  alien  environments.  Do  not  be 
discouraged  in  striving  after  this  crowning  result  of  the  life 
of  prayer,  for  while  you  pursue  you  are  pursued  by  the 
Eternal  Lover,  of  Whom  William  Francis  Thompson  sings  so 
boldly  in  The  Hound  of  Heaven.  Here  is  the  converse  of  the 
Christian's  quest  audaciously  depicted  by  the  poet  in  terms 

»Cf.  Rufus  M.  Jones:  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  xxx,  flf. 


250  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  the  Father's  resolute  search  for  His  children.  Divine  love 
and  wisdom  assure  your  advance  from  the  unquestioning 
credence  of  your  first  acquaintance  with  God  into  the  light  of 
the  knowledge  of  His  glory  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 

II 

The  fourth  essential  of  pulpit  preparation  is  a  full  and 
ready  intimacy  with  the  Bible.  A  preacher  may  have  popu- 
lar gifts  and  qualities,  but  he  is  a  weaponless  warrior  in  the 
thick  of  the  battle,  unless  armed  with  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 
I  have  nothing  to  say  against  your  release  from  the  ground- 
less views  of  Biblical  infallibility  already  referred  to  in 
previous  chapters.  Yet  it  is  a  somewhat  dreary  fate  to 
emerge  from  the  haze  of  these  views,  which  at  least  instilled 
in  multitudes  a  feeling  of  reverent  awe,  into  the  cold  light 
of  a  purely  critical  temper  that  reveals  nothing  in  the  Bible 
to  revere.  Undoubtedly,  Protestantism  has  been  entangled  in 
theories  about  the  Book  which,  though  intended  to  emphasize 
its  authority,  have  actually  impaired  it.  For  if  the  religious 
upheaval  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  instigated  by  the  dis- 
covery that  the  mediaeval  Church  taught  many  doctrines  not 
found  in  the  Bible,  the  religious  indifference  of  the  twentieth 
century  can  be  traced  in  part  to  the  malpractice  of  some 
professional  exponents,  who  read  into  the  Book  their  pre- 
possessions and  treat  it  as  a  storehouse  of  proof  texts,  for  the 
sake  of  ideas  which  not  infrequently  offend  the  moral  suscepti- 
bilities of  enlightened  consciences.  Every  preaching  age  has 
its  blind  spot,  and  the  infirmity  of  the  contemporary  pulpit 
lies  in  the  stress  it  lays  upon  the  intellect  alone,  whether  in  its 
cruder  employment  for  the  defense  of  archaic  formularies,  or 
its  more  advanced  use  for  the  reckless  rejection  of  traditions 
which  embody  vital  truth.  Be  concerned  that  the  bright 
gold  of  your  soul's  sanctuary  shall  not  be  dimmed  because  of 
the  intrusion  of  intellectual  elements  which  only  deal  with 
abstractions  in  religion  until  they  are  suffused  with  spiritual 
imagination.     Chierish  the  original  significance  of  the  Scrip- 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  251 

tures  which  neither  uncritical  distortion  nor  destructive  criti- 
cal analysis  can  permanently  conceal.  When  their  last  word 
has  been  said,  the  Bible  still  contains  untold  treasures  alike 
for  the  conservative  and  the  liberal  preacher.  Its  teachings 
remain  the  miracle  of  all  thought  and  time  in  religious  litera- 
ture, and  though  a  denatured  Gospel  can  be  divorced  from 
them,  neither  the  benediction  of  God  nor  the  approval  of  man 
rests  upon  it.  Note  the  mutually  exclusive  schools  of  preach- 
ing, which  range  in  their  one-sidedness  from  rarefied  cul- 
turism  to  evangelical  perfectionism  and  stretch  their  in- 
genious barriers  in  numerous  directions  across  the  path  of 
pulpit  freedom.  They  may  expatiate  on  the  luxuries  of  an 
intellectual  superiority  or  of  an  esoteric  spirituality,  but  all 
alike  are  divisive  and  lack  the  magnitude,  the  grandeur,  the 
regenerating  power  of  the  Word  itself.  The  appreciation  of 
these  qualities  of  Scripture  is  as  necessary  to  your  propaganda 
as  the  reasoning  mind.  The  Bible  unifies  and  substantiates 
those  essentials  of  preaching  which  without  it  are  unrelated 
and  unauthoritative.  Desultory  and  shallow  sermons  are  con- 
spicuous for  their  ignorance  of  its  contents  and  seldom  fortify 
faith  or  build  up  the  Church.  Dissertations  on  current  events 
and  literary  or  other  topics  which  have  no  religious  realism 
in  them  are  wearying  to  the  worshiping  soul.  The  corporate 
life  of  our  Christian  witness  does  not  center  in  Homer,  Dante, 
Shakespeare  or  Milton,  but  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
writings.  They  integrate  the  most  recent  candidate  for  the 
ministry  with  the  Christ  of  God,  with  the  glorious  company 
of  the  Apostles,  with  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets, 
with  the  noble  army  of  martyrs,  with  the  Holy  Church 
throughout  all  the  world.  In  them  is  the  home  of  pulpit 
utterance,  by  virtue  of  which  it  enjoys  protection,  authority 
and  acceptance. 

Do  not  think  me  captious  if  I  protest  against  the  crowding 
out  of  the  Bible  from  its  place  of  parental  precedence  by 
other  books,  even  those  about  the  Bible.  Since  the  eighties 
of  the  last  century,  the  literature  of  pronounced  evangelical- 
ism has  run  concurrently  with  that  of  a  searching  historical 


252  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

criticism.  To-day  works  prone  to  be  of  the  hot-house  va- 
riety, or  to  praise  a  type  of  religious  being  which  Christ  Him- 
self did  not  require,  teem  from  the  press,  and  volumes  in- 
tended to  prepare  you  for  the  more  obvious  and  mechanical 
aspects  of  Christian  discipleship  have  a  still  wider  circulation. 
Meanwhile,  the  gulf  between  knowledge  and  ignorance  of  the 
Bible  widens  apace,  and  although  the  arduous  services  of 
modem  scholarship  have  placed  the  light  of  the  Scriptures 
upon  a  golden  candle-stick,  its  radiance  is  neglected.  In- 
struction in  their  teachings,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  given  in 
families,  numerous  churches  and  educational  institutions, 
is  lamentably  deficient  in  quantity  and  quality,  with  the  con- 
sequence that  almost  every  strange  absurdity  or  familiar 
heresy  is  foisted  upon  the  Book.  This  is  the  more  to  be  re- 
gretted since  the  Bible  is  your  center  of  gravity  in  preaching. 
The  pastor  is  compelled  to  observe  that  the  worst  penalty  of 
spreading  these  false  ideas  is  that  they  are  believed,  and  he 
has  to  admit  that  this  sowing  of  the  tares  in  the  growing  wheat 
is  one  of  the  fatalities  of  freedom  of  interpretation.  If  you 
would  offset  the  evils  it  creates,  revive  in  your  oncoming 
years  the  teaching  office  of  a  ministry  that  does  not  sacrifice 
the  spirit  to  the  letter  of  the  Word,  nor  condemn  the  candid 
study  of  the  letter  as  a  perversion  of  its  spirit.  Preaching 
grounded  in  Biblical  certitudes  is  the  surest  preventive  of 
mentally  dissolute  pulpit  performances,  which,  although  they 
pass  muster  with  the  unwary,  can  no  longer  be  palliated  by 
pleas  based  upon  the  prospective  good  they  may  accomplish. 
The  true  principle  of  Biblical  culture  preserves  an  ac- 
curate proportion  between  the  studies  that  recall  you  to  the 
pith  and  meaning  of  the  sacred  writings  and  those  that  intro- 
duce you  to  the  best  theological  and  homiletical  literature. 
Preponderance  should  be  given  to  the  former,  to  the  supreme 
matters  they  present,  to  reflection  upon  their  processes  and 
laws.  Nothing  within  or  beyond  "the  flaming  ramparts" 
of  the  visible  world  is  exempt  from  their  jurisdiction.  What- 
ever you  require,  from  the  remotest  stirrings  of  religious 
realities  inspired  by  the  Spirit  to  those  which  He  has  blazoned 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  253 

on  the  front  of  conscience  and  of  reason,  is  here  to  be  ob- 
tained. My  chief  difficulty  in  expounding  the  Scriptures 
does  not  arise  from  the  critical  and  historical  issues  associated 
with  their  origin  and  content,  but  from  my  utter  inability  to 
encompass  their  marvelous  dimensions  as  the  vehicle  of  the 
Eternal  Will.  Their  heights  and  depths  hold  me  spell-bound. 
In  them  are  altitudes  one  dare  not  attempt  to  climb  and  depths 
which  forbid  exploration.  Yet  many  can  testify  that  the 
man  "who  has  lost  his  God  can  find  Him  again  in  this  Book, 
and  he  who  has  never  known  Him  is  here  struck  by  the  breath 
of  the  Divine  "Word."  Professor  William  Lyon  Phelps  has 
called  attention  to  its  influence  not  only  upon  celebrities  of 
the  past,  but  upon  those  of  the  present  age.  Ibsen,  Tolstoy, 
Dostoevsky,  Kipling,  Wells,  George  Moore  and  other  contem- 
porary authors,  some  of  whom  openly  avow  their  religious 
agnosticism,  are  a  unit  in  the  homage  they  pay  to  the  Bible. 
Ibsen,  that  dark  tempestuous  spirit  of  the  north,  declared  that 
he  made  it  his  principal  reading ;  Tolstoy  knew  the  New  Testa- 
ment well-nigh  by  heart;  Dostoevsky  read  it  for  four  years 
in  his  Siberian  prison;  Kipling's  Recessional,  which  probably 
will  outlive  the  rest  of  his  compositions,  is  almost  a  paraphrase 
from  the  Scriptures.*  No  stage  in  the  world's  development 
can  make  these  ancient  documents  obsolete,  nor  supersede  their 
spiritual  and  ethical  standards,  nor  prevent  them  from  even- 
tually blending  the  soul  of  the  race  with  its  Divine  Author, 
the  Spirit  Who  impels 

"All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Dr.  Pusey,  when  asked  by  his  wife  why  he  could  not  preach 
as  Newman  preached,  gave  among  other  reasons  that  he  had 
been  studying  evidences  when  he  should  have  been  reading 
the  Bible.  Jowett  of  Balliol  told  a  divinity  student  that  if 
he  would  be  a  preacher  he  must  first  master  the  four  Gospels. 
The  entire  Koran  is  recited  daily  in  many  Mohammedan 
mosques  by  thirty  relays  of  priests,  and  countless  followers 
of  the  Prophet  can  repeat  from  memory  its  six  thousand 

*Cf.  William  Lyon  Phelps:  Reading  the  Bible,  pp.  17,  19. 


254  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

verses.  Yet  I  have  known  candidates  for  the  Christian  min- 
istry to  whom  the  Bible,  including  even  the  four  Gospels, 
was  practically  a  sealed  book.  They  could  not  name  the 
parables  peculiar  to  St.  Luke,  nor  give  a  synopsis  of  the 
discourses  of  St.  John,  nor  recall  the  visions  of  the  anony- 
mous genius  of  the  Exile,  who  portrayed  the  Suffering  Servant 
of  Jehovah.  There  are  changes  for  the  better,  but  to  no  such 
extent  as  the  situation  requires,  and  until  the  Bible  is  restored 
to  its  time-honored  supremacy  in  the  home,  the  school,  the 
college  and  the  study,  the  ministry  and  mission  of  the  Church 
will  continue  to  show  the  disastrous  consequences  of  its  neglect. 

The  fifth  essential  for  the  preacher's  preparation  is  the 
vigilant  selection  and  study  of  other  books  than  the  Bible, 
most  serviceable  to  his  purpose.  I  do  not  claim  that  you 
should  rejuvenate  that  semi-legendary  figure,  "the  admirable 
Crichton,"  but  I  must  insist  that  few  men  can  be  competent 
teachers  of  the  things  of  the  Spirit  unless  they  familiarize 
themselves  with  the  best  intimations  of  first  class  minds.  In 
days  crowded  with  various  duties  you  will  have  to  make  a 
space  for  the  reflective  reading  in  which  the  soul  has  leave 
to  grow,  the  mind  an  opportunity  to  resume  its  meditative 
habit.  Theological  students  sometimes  move  on  into  their 
ministry  proof  against  anything  except  the  few  volumes  which 
coddle  their  particular  beliefs  and  enforce  their  inherited 
ideas.  Some  escape  this  limitation  by  means  of  their  innate 
originality,  others  bear  its  marks  to  the  end.  The  preacher 
who  accepts  only  selected  principles  couched  in  denomina- 
tional dialects,  and  thinks,  in  so  far  as  he  thinks  at  all,  on 
lines  severed  from  the  main  avenues  where  the  great  thinkers 
are  to  be  found,  may  tend  a  few  sheep  in  some  secluded  fold, 
but  he  will  not  be  summoned  to  the  fray  in  which  the  for- 
midable foes  of  faith  and  religion  are  smitten  down. 

The  men  and  women  you  address  acquiesce  in  the  expansion 
of  secular  knowledge,  consent  to  the  authority  it  imposes,  and 
in  every  way  sustain  its  diffusion.  But  this  knowledge  needs 
the  control  of  moral  ownership  and  the  refinement  of  creative 
works  of  the  intellect  and  imagination.    If  these  are  not 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  255 

forthcoming  the  material  tendencies  of  the  age  may  degener- 
ate into  a  despotism  similar  to  that  which  troubled  the  Roman 
Empire  of  the  fifth  century,  when,  according  to  Dill,  govern- 
ment was  brought  to  the  verge  of  disruption  because  the  rulers 
and  patricians  were  wedded  to  a  deadening  conservatism 
which  stifled  their  faith  in  a  wider  future  for  humanity. 
They  were  unable  to  imagine,  even  when  confronted  by  tre- 
mendous forces  for  change,  that  society  would  ever  cease  to 
be  what  it  then  was.  The  analogy  between  a  waning  Empire 
and  a  growing  Republic  is  necessarily  incomplete;  yet  it  has 
striking  similarities  which  admonish  the  leaders  of  this  nation 
that  it  must  be  kept  in  vital  contact  with  the  forces  of  the 
Kingdom  which  is  "not  eating  and  drinking,  but  righteous- 
ness and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  ° 

The  creative  imagination  and  artistic  conscience  are  not  to 
be  drudges  of  secondary  affairs.  The  literatures  of  knowledge 
and  of  power  which  De  Quincey  defines  and  enlarges  upon 
should  be  your  constant  aids.  Clerics  who  entertain  pious 
scruples  about  genuine  culture  substitute  personal  idosyn- 
crasies  for  the  obligations  of  their  calling.  Faith,  however 
fervid,  is  apt  to  become  feeble  and  inconsequent  unless  it  is 
supplemented  by  those  more  generous  attainments  of  learning 
which  really  become  a  part  of  character.  The  just  reasons, 
telling  allusions,  appropriate  metaphors  and  finished  sen- 
tences which  seem  to  spring  from  the  practiced  speaker's 
lips  with  magical  fluency  represent  years  of  previous  applica- 
tion. A  score  of  assimilated  volumes  lie  behind  the  passages 
in  his  discourse  which  enchain  your  attention,  and  what  is 
outwardly  the  impromptu  ranging  of  arguments  in  perfect 
array,  the  clothing  of  thought  with  felicitous  rhetoric,  is  in- 
wardly due  to  an  orderly  and  well-stored  mind,  which  pro- 
ceeds with  confidence  and  freedom  toward  its  desired  ends. 
Do  not  vex  yourselves  about  originality,  for  Emerson  laid 
that  specter  when  he  said  that  all  literature  sinoe  Plato  was 

8  Romans  xiv:  17. 


256  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

a  quotation.  You  cannot  turn  to  any  essay  of  the  Sage  of 
Concord  without  finding  numerous  citations  from  the  best 
works.  His  frequency  and  suitability  in  appropriating  the 
words  of  earlier  writers  provoked  the  comment  of  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  that  Emerson's  quotations  were  like  the  miracu- 
lous draught  of  fishes.  He  was  a  striking  illustration  of 
Bacon 's  axiom  that  reading  makes  a  full  man ;  and  so  little 
did  he  lend  himself  to  the  idle  vanity  of  seeking  all  the  impli- 
cations of  a  subject  in  his  own  head  that  he  drew  incessantly 
upon  that  fulness,  nor  was  he  seldom  more  likely  to  be  at  his 
best  than  when  he  had  first  borrowed  a  pregnant  sentence 
from  Plutarch,  Cicero  or  any  other  of  the  masters. 

Your  first  love  belongs,  as  I  have  said,  to  books  which  bear 
directly  on  ethics,  theology  and  preaching.  Permit  me  to 
recommend  in  addition  to  those  previously  named  Lecky's 
History  of  European  Morals  and  his  Rise  and  Influence  of 
Rationalism  in  Europe,  Principal  Edward  Caird's  Evolution 
of  Religion,  Auguste  Sabatier's  Philosophy  of  Religion  and 
also  his  Religions  of  Authority  and  the  Religion  of  the  Spirit, 
W.  L.  Walker's  Christian  Theism  and  a  Spiritual  Monism, 
Professor  James'  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience  and  The 
Will  to  Believe,  Baron  Von  Hugel's  Mystical  Element  of  Re- 
ligion and  his  Eternal  Life,  Sir  Henry  Jones'  Idealism  as  a 
Practical  Creed,  J.  R.  Illingworth's  Divine  Immanence,  Dr. 
Newton  Clarke's  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  almost  any 
of  the  works  of  Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell,  Drs.  A.  B. 
Bruce,  Marcus  Dods,  H,  B.  Workman,  Charles  E.  Jefferson, 
James  Denney  and  Professor  Joseph  Agar  Beet,  a  commen- 
tator whose  writings  opened  up  for  me  the  profound  message 
of  the  Pauline  Epistles.  But  I  must  desist  from  trespassing 
on  a  domain  belonging  to  your  professors  and  will  only 
add  that  your  selection  should  be  made  independently 
of  the  restrictive  counsel  which  decries  the  use  of  literature 
at  large  in  the  making  of  the  sermon.  So  long  as  their  sub- 
stance is  subordinated  to  your  main  design,  the  right  books 
are  of  the  greatest  service  to  the  pulpit.    A  type  of  preaching 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  257 

which  begins  and  ends  with  Scriptural  truths,  amplified  and 
enriched  by  an  acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  such  authors 
as  Martineau  and  Newman  in  homiletics,  Burke  and  Lincoln 
in  politics,  Bacon  and  Montaigne  in  their  essays,  Shakespeare 
and  Browning  in  poetry,  and  George  Eliot  and  Meredith  in 
fiction,  vindicates  the  use  of  literature  as  a  complement  of 
the  divine  message.  This  message  must  be  rid  of  the  vul- 
garity of  "journalese,"  and  of  perfunctory  shibboleths  that 
obscure  its  grandeur.  You  need  have  no  hesitation  in  hark- 
ing back  to  the  writers  whose  rank  has  been  assigned  them 
by  the  verdict  of  Time.  There  may  be  doubts  as  to  second- 
rate  authors,  "but  the  company  of  the  masters,  of  those  who 
know,  and  in  especial  degree  of  the  great  poets  is,"  in  Fred- 
eric Harrison's  words,  "a  roll  long  closed  and  complete,  and 
they  who  are  of  it  hold  ever  peaceful  converse  together. ' '  ® 
The  best  literature  requires  no  searching  for ;  it  is  advertised 
in  the  market  place  and  translated  into  every  civilized  Ian-, 
guage.  To  appreciate  even  in  a  modified  degree  minds  like 
Plato,  Epictetus,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Calderon, 
Corneille,  Goethe,  and  other  writers  of  whose  importance  the 
young  student  is  less  likely  to  be  aware,  such  as  Pascal, 
Wordsworth,  Ruskin  or  Matthew  Arnold,  introduces  you  to 
epochs  and  ideas  which  enlarge  your  interpretations  of  life 
and  truth.  Apart  from  the  pleasure^  and  consolation  they 
administer,  which  are  the  resources  of  educated  men  and 
women,  they  stimulate  your  processes  of  thought  and  feeling, 
and  reduce  redundancy,  triteness  and  superfluous  similes. 
The  lover  of  good  books  lives  in  a  world  of  his  own,  in  which 
he  watches  the  genesis  and  growth  of  events,  surveys  the  ut- 
most bounds  of  the  past,  forecasts  the  future  and  travels 
with  Keats  "in  the  realms  of  gold."  In  that  world  Richard 
of  Bury  found  the  dead  as  if  they  were  alive,  and  Balzac  re- 
turned from  a  crowded  salon  to  the  society  of  his  prized 
volumes  exclaiming,  * '  Now  for  some  real  people ! "    A  refuge 

•  The  Choice  of  Books,  p.  39.     This  little  volume  is  replete  with  wise 
oounsel. 


258  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

from  the  domineering  present,  which  would  fain  subdue  you, 
is  to  be  found  in  those  literary  studies  which  teach  you  how 
to  conquer  it. 

Fellowship  with  the  mighty  spirits  who  bring  at  your 
bidding  the  fruit  of  their  utmost  labors,  whose  works,  bom 
of  faith  and  hope,  love  and  sorrow,  comedy  and  tragedy,  are 
either  austere  or  rapturous  and  eloquent,  in  brief,  redolent 
of  human  life  in  all  its  multiform  phases,  saves  you  from 
attributing  an  exaggerated  importance  to  your  own  ideas,  and 
shows  how  far  the  preacher  may  go  without  discovering  the 
secrets  of  adequate  thought  and  expression.  For  though  you 
cannot  make  every  arch  a  rainbow  or  every  star  a  sun,  faith- 
ful intercourse  with  the  major  poets,  philosophers  and  essay- 
ists will  add  to  the  purity  and  effectiveness  of  your  style  and 
enable  you  to  condense  a  wealth  of  meaning  in  a  phrase.  The 
majestic  simplicity  of  Dante,  the  intoxicating  rhythm  of 
Shelley,  the  classic  beauty  of  Keats,  the  tranquil  spirituality 
of  Wordsworth,  the  psychological  insight  of  Browning,  the 
perfect  artistry  of  Tennyson,  reveal  the  oneness  of  soul  and 
inspiration  which  lives  and  moves  in  all  these  magisterial 
spirits.  Should  you  be  doubtful  whether  you  have  access 
to  their  great  companionship,  read  Lycidas,  or  The  Ode  to 
the  West  Wind,  or  Lines  Above  Tintern  Abbey,  and  if  they 
arouse  in  you  the  indefinable  sympathy  which  unites  you 
with  their  authors,  you  have  the  right  to  claim  kinship  with 
them.  But  if  they  sound  strange  and  seem  to  dwell  in  a 
realm  from  which  you  are  excluded,  stay  with  them  until 
their  glory  is  disclosed.  Robertson  of  Brighton  read  many 
of  the  writers  I  have  mentioned,  and  committed  Dante's 
Inferno  to  memory  during  a  single  year.  For  the  sake  of  his 
pulpit  style  William  Lonsdale  Watkinson  transcribed  Para- 
dise Lost  while  he  was  still  a  probationer,  and  Robert  William 
Dale  always  kept  a  copy  of  Burke's  speeches  at  hand.  These 
masters  illuminated  their  sermons  with  rays  from  the  shining 
orbs  of  the  literary  firmament,  and  thus  created  the  effects 
which  remind  one  of  the  lighting  up  from  within  of  a  great 
cathedral  at  dusk. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  259 

You  have  to  remember  what  has  been  hinted  about  dis- 
crimination in  literature.  Nearly  everybody  reads  to-day, 
few  sit  alone  with  idle  eyes,  and  of  the  making  of  books 
there  is  no  end.  But  how  many  read  to  purpose,  and  how 
few  books  are  aught  but  ephemeral,  with  little  or  no  literary 
consequence?  Certainly  popularity  and  worth  do  not  run 
neck  and  neck  just  now,  and  though  the  tombs  of  the  literary 
prophets  are  not  forsaken,  they  are  far  from  being  the  shrines 
of  what  we  are  pleased  to  call  an  educated  democracy.  The 
output  of  the  press,  groaning  beneath  the  burden  of  new 
volumes,  reminds  one  of  the  sardonic  observation  of  Calli- 
machus  that  the  Euphrates  was  indeed  a  mighty  stream,  but 
it  rolled  down  to  the  sea  all  the  dead  dogs  of  Babylon.  No 
one  among  you  will  be  foolish  enough  to  imitate  the  witch- 
eries of  famous  poets  or  attempt  to  don  the  robes  of  paladins 
of  prose.  Far  otherwise ;  though  you  scan  them  intently, 
and  retain  what  in  them  is  worth  while,  their  inferences, 
ideas  and  arguments  should  be  discreetly  used,  passed  through 
the  crucible  of  your  own  mind,  and  steeped  in  its  native 
thinking.  Rapid  readers  seldom  keep  what  they  get,  if  in- 
deed, they  get  what  they  should  keep.  Harriet  Martineau 
was  content  to  spend  an  hour  with  a  single  page ;  most  of  us 
can  profitably  do  likewise.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine 
a  more  educative  practice  for  stilted  and  conventional  preach- 
ers than  the  absorption  of  the  poetry  and  prose  which  have 
enriched  the  realms  of  religion  and  letters.  The  arduous 
drill  of  thinking  through  the  propositions  of  an  author  like 
Kant,  or  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  does  not  yield  his  treasures 
to  any  but  the  studious,  is  a  corrective  for  valetudinarian 
piety.  Yet  reading  and  absorption  of  what  is  read  are  not 
in  themselves  final.  I  have  met  ministers  ''deep  versed  in 
books  but  shallow  in  themselves,"  who  emphasized  the  an- 
omaly mentioned  by  St.  Paul  of  those  who  are  ever  learning 
but  never  coming  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  They  fail 
to  arrive  because  there  is  no  vital  correspondence  between 
their  inmost  selves  and  the  ideas  they  intellectually  assimilate. 
One  may  carry  whole  histories  and  philosophies  in  his  head, 


260  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

but  until  they  have  captured  his  heart  and  imagination,  he 
cannot  successfully  impart  them  to  others.  Again,  you  will 
meet  ministers  who  grow  in  manhood  and  ability  without 
visible  effort,  while  others  diminish  in  both  despite  their  un- 
questionable lore,  whose  thinking,  such  as  it  is,  becomes  a 
shapeless  thing,  crushed  beneath  an  inchoate  mass  of  in- 
formation. It  was  said  of  Macaulay,  though  not  altogether 
justly,  that  his  memory  swallowed  up  his  mind.  Certainly 
had  he  been  less  profuse  he  would  have  been  more  cogent ;  but 
where  his  genius  could  trespass  with  comparative  impunity, 
the  ordinary  person  should  not  cast  a  glance.  The  discern- 
ing student  knows  that  the  end  of  his  reading  is  not  in  the 
folio  but  in  himself.  He  is  neither  to  be  imprisoned  by  the 
printed  page  nor  to  leave  it  until  laden  with  its  spoils.  He 
offsets  his  tendencies  to  mere  bookishness  by  his  intercourse 
with  life,  finding  in  its  dark  and  troubled  problems  or  humane 
and  benevolent  aspects  the  amplest  opportunities  for  personal 
growth.  The  more  competent  the  minister  becomes,  the  more 
anxious  he  will  be  to  make  his  learning  thoroughly  compatible 
with  the  deepest  spiritual  culture  and  to  align  all  his  acquire- 
ments with  the  needs  of  his  calling. 

Changes  in  mental  attitude  and  standards  of  determination 
constantly  occur,  and  even  the  initiated  cannot  always  an- 
ticipate or  appraise  them  aright.  You  will  best  do  this  by 
dedicating  your  powers  to  the  God  of  all  wisdom,  Whose 
Spirit  enables  you  to  judge  life  according  to  its  eternal  sig- 
nificance; and  by  keeping  in  touch  with  its  many-sidedness, 
as  this  is  revealed  through  great  authors,  the  rich  timbre  of 
whose  manifold  voices  should  always  be  audible  to  you.  No 
intellectual  ideal  of  the  ministry  gets  beyond  the  stage  of 
dreamy  desire  until  it  has  sojourned  with  you  in  every  climate 
not  only  of  the  mind  but  of  the  heart.  Abbe  Bautain  states 
the  case  pertinently:  "The  fund  to  be  amassed  by  those  who 
intend  to  speak  in  public  is  a  treasury  of  ideas,  tTioughts  and 
principles  of  knowledge,  strongly  conceived,  firmly  linked 
together,  carefully  thought  out,  in  such  a  way  that,  through- 
out all  this  diversity  of  study,  the  mind,  so  far  as  may  be, 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  261 

shall  admit  nothing  save  what  it  thoroughly  comprehends,  or 
at  least  has  made  its  own  to  a  certain  extent  by  meditation. ' ' '' 
Many  clergymen  have  much  of  the  divine  messenger 's  equip- 
ment and  still  are  not  received  joyfully.  One  source  of 
their  failure  to  connect  is  unsystematized  thinking,  which 
leaves  sermonie  material  a  confusion  worse  confounded. 
The  preacher  who  is  voluble  without  vision,  passionate  with- 
out reason,  confused  when  he  should  be  clear,  and  diffuse 
when  he  should  be  pointed,  usually  allows  ideas  to  run  riot 
in  his  brain,  and  there  contend  for  priority  of  utterance. 
Once  they  are  marshaled,  and  march  forth  at  his  behest  like 
soldiers  on  parade,  they  carry  with  sequence  what  he  pur- 
poses to  convey.  No  intuition,  however  keen,  nor  facility  of 
speech,  however  pronounced,  can  remedy  the  delinquencies 
mentioned  unless  you  are  philosopher  enough  to  analyze  your 
premises,  logician  enough  to  formulate  them  and  prophet 
enough  to  previse  their  conclusions.  The  sum  of  what  has 
been  said  amounts  to  this :  that  the  preaching  mind  "  is  a  tree 
of  life,  growing  by  the  side  of  the  river  of  God,  and  bearing 
all  manner  of  fruits.  To  guard  it  sedulously,  to  study  the 
laws  impressed  on  it  by  its  Creator,  to  enrich  the  soil  around 
it,  and  so  to  develop  it  to  its  fullest  stature  and  to  the  limits 
of  its  producing  capacity,  are  not  only  plain  duties  which  a 
share  of  our  interest  should  dictate,  but  the  most  fitting 
acknowledgment  we  can  make  to  God. ' '  * 

III 

Loose  and  unconsidered  speech  in  the  pulpit  is  to  be 
strongly  deprecated.  The  copious  outpourings  of  one  who  is 
fluent  but  slovenly  in  style  or  indifferent  to  reasoned  order  in 
the  treatment  of  divine  subjects  are  an  offense.  At  the  same 
time,  sermons  are  primarily  intended  to  be  heard  rather  than 
read,  to  have  the  character  and  qualities  of  the  spoken  word, 
not  of  literature,  and  this  intention  explains  the  fact  that 

T Quoted  by  Gilbert  Monks:   The  Preacher' a  Guide,  pp.  42-43. 
•  J.  Brierley:  From  PhiUatia,  p.  67. 


262  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

only  exceptional  discourses  are  anything  more  than  fugitive 
productions.  Your  problem  is  to  avoid  self-consciousness, 
which  obstructs  the  free  working  of  the  preacher's  mind,  and 
conventionality,  which  separates  preaching  from  the  intelli- 
gent speech  of  other  realms.  Young  ministers,  whose  habits 
of  work  are  presumably  not  altogether  fixed,  should  be  con- 
cerned to  become  extempore  speakers  while  they  remain  lit- 
erary in  their  style.  How  can  this  be  accomplished?  There 
is  no  sole  answer  to  the  query  and  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion fully  is  beyond  our  present  aim.  Every  man  must 
follow  his  natural  bent  and  adopt  the  principles  of  production 
and  delivery  which  justify  themselves  in  practice.  One  sel- 
dom listens  to  great  preachers  without  wishing  that  he  knew 
more  of  their  methods  of  preparation.  But  most  of  them 
who  have  dealt  with  the  matter  recommend  the  full  and 
careful  writing  of  the  sermon  and  its  subjection  to  frequent 
revision.  This  process  has  been  fertile  in  results,  but  these 
are  best  communicated  by  preachers  who  are  unfettered  by 
manuscript.  Yet  here  again  are  exceptions  to  the  rule. 
Chalmers  wrote  like  a  giant,  and  read  as  Jehu  drove ;  Robert 
Hall  robed  his  thoughts  as  they  emerged,  and  believed  that  if 
his  leading  ideas  were  first  mastered  and  arranged,  words 
would  take  care  of  themselves,  a  belief  which,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  few  preachers  can  safely  entertain.  Whether  you 
read  your  sermons,  which  probably  is  the  least  preferable 
practice,  or  memorize  them,  which  deprives  you  of  some  of 
the  best  results  of  preaching  derived  from  the  occasion,  or 
write  and  extemporaneously  deliver  them,  which  I  venture 
to  think  insures  their  largest  benefits,  incessant  labor  is  al- 
ways presupposed  in  each  of  these  methods.  Impromptu, 
memoriter  and  extemporaneous  preaching  have  their  respec- 
tive advocates  and  meritorious  examples.  Nevertheless,  im- 
promptu speaking  strictly  belongs  to  conversation  and  debate, 
memoriter  speaking  to  the  sophomore  and  the  actor,  extem- 
poraneous speaking  to  the  statesman  and  the  preacher.  Each 
has  its  place  and  value,  but  impromptu  speaking  abounds  in 
betrayals  of  pulpit  eificiency,  and  "the  moment  that  any  one 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  263 

becomes  incapable  of  trusting  himself  without  having  a  manu- 
script transferred  wholesale  to  his  memory,  he  loses  the  quality 
of  a  speaker  and  takes  that  of  a  reciter  of  his  own  writings. ' '  ^ 
You  perhaps  perceive  that  my  inclination  runs  toward  writ- 
ing, rewriting  and  pruning  one 's  compositions,  condensing  and 
improving  them  in  every  possible  way,  never  supposing  that 
fecundity  of  expression  will  carry  him  through.  Then  take 
at  most  a  brief  abstract  into  the  pulpit,  expecting  that  you 
will  utter  some  truths  your  hearers  will  gratefully  remember. 
On  the  other  hand,  seize  every  lawful  opportunity  to  speak 
impromptu,  and  by  this  means  preserve  the  naturalness  and 
directness  of  your  pulpit  utterance.  The  power  of  trans- 
lating ideas  which  you  have  previously  appropriated  into 
their  choicest  forms  of  expressions,  shaped  and  colored  by 
your  literary  intimacies,  not  delivered  by  rote,  but  with  ap- 
parent spontaneity,  enables  you  to  unite  thorough  preparation 
with  freedom  of  delivery.  Balance  your  reflections,  recall 
the  sentiments  and  sayings  of  premier  men  upon  the  matters 
you  discuss,  and  even  your  impromptu  addresses  will  seldom 
be  without  nuggets  of  good  sense.  An  imperial  memory  per- 
forms astonishing  feats  for  a  time,  but  advancing  years  dimin- 
ish its  ability,  and  leave  the  preacher  who  has  exclusively 
relied  upon  it  in  a  parlous  state.  Impromptu  speaking,  how- 
ever instructive,  is  liable  to  be  crude  and  negligent.  Ex- 
temporaneous speaking,  based  upon  extensive  writing  and 
revision,  will  probably  develop  your  preaching  gifts  more 
thoroughly  and  readily  than  either  of  the  other  two  methods. 
Pascal  defined  the  sermon  as  "a  religious  address  in  which 
the  Word  of  God  is  stated  and  explained,  and  the  audience 
is  excited  to  the  practice  of  virtue."  The  definition  is  clear 
but  parsimonious,  and  savors  of  the  reserve  of  a  thinker 
whose  acquaintance  with  preaching,  as  understood  by  Protest- 
antism, had  been  casual  and  incomplete.  There  are  other 
qualities  in  the  sermon  besides  those  covered  by  Pascal,  and 
all  are  required  for  that  presentation  of  divine  truth  in 

»T,  Bowman  Stephenson:   William  Arthur:  A  Brief  Biography,  pp. 
72,  79. 


264  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

which  its  meanings  are  explained  and  its  claims  enforced,  to 
the  end  that  men  may  repent  of  their  sins  and  trust  the  mercy 
of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  for  pardon  and  cleansing.  The  choice 
of  texts  of  Scripture  as  the  basis  of  pulpit  discourse  is  a 
comparatively  modern  custom.  The  Fathers  often  expounded 
a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  lesson  for  the  day  as  found  in  the 
lectionaries ;  and  Basil  of  Caesarea  refers  in  one  of  his 
homilies  to  four  such  lessons  as  the  burden  of  his  message. 
The  forced  connection  to  which  this  practice  gave  rise  ac- 
counts for  the  hortatory  and  discursive  character  of  the  dis- 
course of  some  Fathers,  and  also  of  later  Roman  Catholic, 
Anglican  and  Reformed  divines.  Yet  preaching  from  the 
lesson  of  the  day  has  always  had  its  champions,  and  nu- 
merous excellent  examples  could  be  adduced  in  support  of 
their  contention.  Nevertheless,  I  know  no  wiser  plan  than  to 
choose  a  suitable  text,  provided  you  wed  it  to  your  theme 
and  take  care  not  to  divorce  it.  Thus  you  reverence  the  Scrip- 
tures, invest  what  you  have  to  say  with  their  authority,  and 
find  a  nucleus  for  your  discourse  which  imparts  variety, 
harmony  and  unity  to  its  structure.  It  is  one  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  young  preacher  to  select  those  passages  of  Holy 
Writ  which  appeal  to  him  and  are  available  for  the  use  of 
his  material  as  well  as  for  the  needs  of  the  hour.  His  selec- 
tion can  be  made  in  the  light  of  two  standing  principles: 
first,  that  religion  and  nothing  else  is  the  supreme  factor  of 
human  life,  and,  second,  that  the  New  Testament  Evangel 
is  the  most  vital  theme  of  universal  religion.  Texts  that  lend 
themselves  to  extraneous,  fanciful  or  disputatious  treatment 
should  be  avoided,  while  those  that  lay  hold  on  you  so  that 
you  cannot  escape  them  are  certainly  meant  for  your  use. 
The  profoundest  experiences  of  Christian  faith  and  fellow- 
ship recorded  in  the  Bible  summon  similar  experiences  of  your 
soul  as  deep  calls  unto  deep.  Respond  to  them  in  humble 
dependence  upon  the  Spirit  Who  is  God's  Executive,  and  you 
will  not  be  deprived  of  the  guidance  which  leads  into  the 
greenest  pastures  and  to  the  fountains  of  living  waters. 
When  the  text  has  been  chosen,  clearly  determine  from  its 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  265 

teaching  and  context  the  theme  you  wish  to  elucidate  and 
the  objective  you  have  before  you;  then  develop  the  theme 
as  the  smelter  melts  the  ore,  and  articulate  it  with  your  main 
purpose  as  the  smith  fashions  the  metal  according  to  pattern. 
If  the  process  halts,  read  parallel  passages  that  cast  light 
upon  the  text,  interpreting  Scripture  by  Scripture  after  the 
manner  of  men  adept  in  searching  the  Divine  Oracles.  Pas- 
toral activities  and  holy  rites  alike  have  their  place  in  your 
work,  but  the  ministry  of  the  Word  should  never  be  forgotten, 
nor  its  teaching  and  exhortation  set  aside  in  behalf  either  of 
machinery  or  rituals.  Bunyan  paints  in  Pilgrim's  Progress 
the  immortal  portrait  of  the  student  thus  engaged :  ' '  The 
Interpreter  had  Christian  into  a  private  room,  and  bid  his 
man  open  a  door,  the  which  when  he  had  done.  Christian  saw 
a  picture  of  a  very  grave  person  hung  up  against  the  wall, 
and  this  was  the  fashion  of  it.  It  had  eyes  lift  up  to 
heaven ;  the  best  of  books  was  in  its  hands ;  the  law  of  truth 
was  written  upon  its  lips ;  the  world  was  behind  its  back ; 
it  stood  as  if  it  pleaded  with  men ;  and  a  crown  of  gold  hung 
over  its  head."  Though  the  Bible  has  been  read  and  ex- 
pounded by  prophets  and  teachers  of  every  race,  degree  of 
talent  and  wealth  of  genius,  and  with  a  constancy  such  as  no 
other  literature  has  received,  it  still  abounds  in  themes  which 
yield  the  rarest  spiritual  treasures  to  the  patient  and  devout 
seeker.  Search  the  Scriptures,  and  your  sermons  will  be 
filled  with  grace  and  benediction  unto  their  hearers.  A  stimu- 
lating author,  not  necessarily  though  preferably  an  expert 
upon  homiletics  and  theology,  will  often  be  of  valuable  as- 
sistance in  building  the  discourse.  The  writers  who  have  dis- 
cussed in  noble  and  weighty  ways  the  meanings  of  life,  who 
have  sung  them  in  the  classics  of  poetry  and  enshrined  them 
in  moving  prose,  enable  you  to  gain  ascendancy  over  the  ser- 
mon 's  making  and  to  complete  it  with  vigorous  mentality  and 
moral  assurance. 

St.  Paul  was  never  at  a  loss  in  the  mystic  power  of  in- 
ducing belief  in  others,  which  is  the  main  design  of  preach- 
ing,  because   he  had   contact   with   his   Living   Lord.     His 


266  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

epistles,  homilies,  exhortations,  social  intercourse,  prison  mes- 
sages and  witness  as  a  martyr  were  aflame  with  his  religious 
experience.  By  means  of  one  great  doctrine  he  practically 
recreated  the  nations  of  the  west.  Like  him,  you  have  entered 
into  a  secret  communion  with  Christ,  the  benefits  of  which  are 
to  be  offered  to  all  men.  Your  message  to  them  is  to  a  large 
extent  the  reproduction  of  your  regenerated  personality,  and 
no  texts,  chapters,  or  books  of  the  Bible  which  bear  on  that 
regeneration  can  be  a  dead  letter  for  you.  They  state  in 
unequaled  phraseology  the  saving  truths  that  glow  and  bum 
in  your  own  hearts.  Unite  the  testimony  of  your  believing 
spirit  with  the  confirmation  it  receives  from  Holy  Writ,  and 
I  predict  that  while  your  preaching  finds  spacious  flights  in 
other  directions,  it  will  always  return  to  the  essentials  of  the 
Evangel  as  the  bird  returns  to  its  nest.  In  the  sermon,  as  in 
all  else,  life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the  disciple  who  adores 
the  perfect  Ideal  his  Master  embodies  cannot  be  easily  caught 
in  the  toils  of  will-worship,  nor  dally  with  matters  too  trivial 
for  his  hearers  to  endure.  To  follow  Christ  in  this  way  is  to 
repeat  in  your  own  fashion  what  He  has  authorized ;  but  to 
treat  with  indifference  or  neglect  the  truth  which  His  words 
contain  is  to  incur  the  disgrace  of  defeat  and  the  doom  of 
the  disloyal.  Upon  the  walls  of  a  mosque  in  Bagdad  is  in- 
scribed the  motto:  "What  a  man  believes  he  will  die  for; 
what  a  man  thinks  he  will  change  his  mind  about."  The 
inference  is  plain:  the  faith  which  signifies  the  most  blessed 
life  in  yourself  will  thrust  its  theories  and  themes  upon  you 
and  consume  your  energies  in  its  behalf.  The  wandering 
stars  of  our  calling  were  not  polarized  by  that  faith  or  they 
would  have  gravitated  toward  it  as  the  planets  toward  the  sun. 
The  Bible  issues  no  code  of  injunctions  to  be  applied  to 
every  conceivable  preaching  exigency,  but  presents  to  you  a 
gospel  which  is  spirit  and  life;  prophecies  and  psalms  which 
originated  in  a  vital  spiritual  knowledge.  Impelled  by  that 
spirit  and  that  life  you  will  move  in  your  appointed  orbit,  and 
there  shine  with  a  reflected  radiance.  The  reasoning  mind 
which  assails  the  doubts  of  current  skepticism,  the  reforming 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  267 

mind  which  strikes  at  the  errors  and  vices  of  its  age,  the  con- 
soling mind  which  ministers  to  the  sad  and  weary,  the  evan- 
gelistic mind  which  arraigns  sin  before  the  terrors  of  the 
law  and  brings  sinners  to  the  Cross  for  pardon  are  alike 
flashes  from  the  illuminating  mind  of  Christ.  Every  type  of 
preaching  that  possesses  His  mind  will  prosper;  it  cannot  be 
dull,  nor  cynical,  nor  sentimental,  nor  grotesque;  and  what 
it  states  is  supported  by  the  testimony  of  fact  and  experience. 
Inferior  pulpiteers,  who  although  they  travel  within  the  circle 
of  preaching,  seldom,  if  ever,  arrive  at  its  center,  choose 
secondary  or  negligible  themes  because  they  lack  religious 
truth.  To  you  it  is  given  to  appropriate  the  themes  which 
embrace  the  dramatic  history  of  iniquity  and  redemption; 
to  move  as  preachers  amid  glorious  sceneries  of  Divine  love, 
justice  and  wisdom  in  which  what  little  we  know  is  like  the 
Rocky  Mountains  in  comparison  with  the  bulk  of  the  earth. 
Surely,  your  only  hesitation  about  texts  and  topics  in  the 
presence  of  these  eternal  shadows  and  splendors  is  caused  by 
their  very  magnitude,  and  in  the  effort  to  realize  them  more 
adequately  is  the  soul  of  genuine  preaching.  What  inventive 
gifts  you  have  can  be  first  exercised  upon  some  quieter  as- 
pects of  Revelation,  but  eventually  they  will  be  brought  into 
full  practice  by  serving  faithfully  now  the  purposes  of  Divine 
grace.  Great  passions  are  kindled,  great  decisions  made,  great 
transformations  wrought,  by  the  preacher's  commerce  with 
the  sublimer  characteristics  of  the  Gospel  which  encompass 
the  race  and  lift  it  out  of  darkness  into  light.  I  do  not  say 
that  you  are  never  to  be  diverted  from  them,  for  the  pulpit 
must  be  God's  mouthpiece  against  all  evil  and  for  all  right- 
eousness. You  are  the  best  judges  of  the  timeliness  of  such 
diversions,  but  they  should  be  regarded  as  the  exception  and 
not  the  rule  of  your  service.  Nor  is  it  to  be  forgotten  that 
the  preachers  who  have  purified  the  social  conscience  were  not 
addicted  to  what  is  called  ethical  as  distinguished  from 
evangelical  preaching.  They  taught  that  good  works  were 
the  fruit,  and  faith  was  the  root  of  the  tree  whose  leaves  are 
for  the  healing  of  the  nations.    Hence  the  majority  of  lasting 


268  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

reforms  which  are  credited  to  the  pulpit  were  obtained  by 
men  who  proclaimed  the  Crucified  and  Risen  Christ  as  the 
power  and  wisdom  of  God  unto  Salvation  both  for  the  indi- 
vidual and  for  society. 

Stricken  humanity  waits  for  that  proclamation  now.  Myri- 
ads, worn  and  distressed,  are  asking  their  would-be  leaders, 
What  is  your  secret,  the  fountain  of  your  power?  The  ma- 
terialist replies.  Wealth;  the  militarist.  Soldiers  and  steel; 
the  Christian  preacher.  The  Living  God  of  all  righteousness. 
Here  is  the  point :  can  we,  and  shall  we,  communicate  faith  to 
the  faithless,  its  strength  to  the  languid?  Their  listless  de- 
spair or  fevered  rush  will  not  be  cured  by  political  measures 
and  social  re-organizations,  unless  these  originate  in  the  re- 
generating love  of  God  and  are  controlled  by  the  compassion 
and  justice  of  the  Evangel  of  Christ.  In  other  words,  apart 
from  Divine  assistance,  political  and  social  ameliorations  are 
straitened  in  themselves  and  can  accomplish  little  of  perma- 
nent value.  True  reform  is  a  product  of  divine  life,  and 
to  go  about  it  otherwise  is  to  plant  the  heath  in  the  desert 
only  to  be  exterminated  by  its  heated  sands.  If  sound  advice 
could  redeem  sinners  or  make  saints,  men  would  long  ago 
have  found  their  second  Eden,  but  the  recovery  of  Paradise 
waits  upon  the  salvation  of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 
Prophets  of  the  mundane  militate  against  ideals  the  super- 
naturalism  of  which  cannot  be  acclimatized  upon  the  lower 
levels  of  human  experience.  They  will  tell  you,  even  though 
they  are  not  unanimous  as  to  the  course  which  moral  revolu- 
tion should  take,  that  to  be  reformative  is  more  useful  for 
the  age  than  to  be  mystical  and  prophetical.  There  is  enough 
in  what  they  say  to  provoke  you  to  the  works  without  which 
faith  is  dead;  yet  the  prophet-like  minister  does  not,  any 
more  than  they,  hear  voices  in  the  air  or  see  visions  on  the 
horizon  which  send  his  wits  astray  or  plunge  him  into  the 
void  of  the  purposeless.  The  external  relations  of  life  are 
not  the  first  concern  of  ambassadors  of  the  Unseen,  nor  should 
you  forget  that  a  preacher  may  emphasize  social  demands  in 
lieu  of  the  Gospel  because  he  inwardly  doubts  its  power  to 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  269 

transform  life.  The  mysteries  of  the  Christian  Faith  are  not 
to  be  relegated  to  the  background  of  preaching  because  they 
interfere  with  some  accustomed  ways  of  thinking.  They  will 
never  acquiesce  in  the  supremacy  of  the  temporal,  even  when 
that  seems  beneficent,  nor  surrender  the  cardinal  truth  of 
the  Incarnation  to  what  is  termed  the  rational  mind.  Never- 
theless, there  are  inducements,  some  of  them  subtle  enough, 
to  believe  that  the  temporal  is  sufficient.  Later  comes  the 
painful  awakening, — the  smudge  on  the  face  of  beauty,  the 
palsied  limb,  the  fading  brain,  the  alloy  in  the  precious  metal 
of  character,  and  with  them  the  cynic :  the  man  who  has  put 
his  trust  in  the  wrong  things  and  the  wrong  people  and  is,  in 
consequence,  skeptical  of  everything. 

Preachers  who  attempt  a  fatuous  reconciliation  with  a 
humanity  they  do  not  first  strive  to  reconcile  to  God,  lower 
the  temperature  of  their  pulpits.  They  fail  to  satisfy  the 
soul's  felt  needs,  or  to  cleanse  the  mighty  heart  that  beats  in 
modern  democracy.  The  mission  of  omnipotent  grace  against 
the  sins  of  the  age  is  your  chief  consideration,  the  staple  of 
your  thinking,  the  main  theme  of  your  discourse;  and  this 
mission  and  all  it  involves  should  be  expounded  in  the  name 
of  Christ,  in  faith,  in  reason,  and  for  its  appointed  ends.  If 
the  objection  is  raised  that  this  kind  of  preaching  lacks  veri- 
fication, and  that  you  have  no  assurance  it  is  not  a  fancy 
born  in  the  cloudy  hollows  of  the  human  brain,  fall  back  upon 
the  support  of  your  own  soul's  communion,  upon  the  witness 
of  the  Church,  of  the  Bible  and  of  Christian  civilization.  You 
are  not  among  men  to  lower  your  standard  to  them,  but  to 
interpret  them  and  their  practices  in  the  light  of  New  Testa- 
ment teaching.  I  would  go  further  and  say  that  it  is  not 
even  conscience  which  frames  your  duty  as  God's  servant;  it 
simply  reveals  your  duty,  and  bids  you  occupy  till  the  Lord 
of  the  Vineyard  appears.  For  you  have  not  chosen  Christ; 
He  has  chosen  you,  and  ' '  appointed  you  that  ye  should  go  and 
bear  fruit,  and  that  your  fruit  should  abide. ' ' " 

"St.  John  xv:  16. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PREACHING :  ITS  PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE 
(Continued) 


Simon  Peter,  a  servant  and  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  them  that 
have  obtained  a  like  precious  faith  with  us  in  the  righteousness  of 
our  God  and  the  Saviour  Jesus  Christ:  Grace  to  you  and  peace  be 
multiplied  in  the  knowledge  of  God  and  of  Jesus  our  Lord;  seeing 
that  his  divine  power  hath  granted  unto  us  all  things  that  pertain 
unto  life  and  godliness,  through  the  knowledge  of  him  that  called  us 
by  his  own  glory  and  virtue;  whereby  he  hath  granted  unto  us  his 
precious  and  exceeding  great  promises;  that  through  these  ye  may 
become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  having  escaped  from  the 
corruption  that  is  in  the  world  by  lust.  Yea,  and  for  this  Very 
cause,  adding  on  your  part  all  diligence,  in  your  faith  supply 
virtue;  and  in  your  virtue  knowledge;  and  in  your  knowledge  self- 
control;  and  in  your  self-control  patience;  and  in  your  patience 
godliness;  and  in  your  godliness  brotherly  kindness;  and  in  your 
brotherly  kindness  love.  For  if  these  things  are  yours  and  abound, 
they  make  you  to  be  not  idle  nor  unfruitful  unto  the  knowledge  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  For  he  that  lacketh  these  things  is  blind, 
seeing  only  what  is  near,  having  forgotten  the  cleansing  from  his 
old  sins.  Wherefore,  brethren,  give  the  more  diligence  to  make 
your  calling  and  election  sure;  for  if  ye  do  these  things,  ye  shall 
never  stumble;  for  thus  shall  be  richly  supplied  unto  you  the  en- 
trance into  the  eternal  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ.  Wherefore  I  shall  be  ready  always  to  put  you  in  remem- 
brance of  these  things,  though  ye  know  them,  and  are  established 
in  the  truth  which  is  with  you. 

II  Peter  i:l-12. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PREACHING:    ITS   PREPARATION   AND   PRACTICE    (Continued) 

Types  of  preaching — Expository — Evangelistic — Didactic — Their 
limitations — Their  blending — Henry  Ward  Beecher — Dr.  Ly- 
man Abbott — Variety  in  preaching — Nature  and  uses  of  imag- 
ination— Style — Essentials  of  good  style — John  Bright — Deliv- 
ery— Its  importance. 

Sermons  are  usually  divided  into  three  main  classes:  the 
exegetical,  the  evangelistic,  and  the  didactic.  This  classifi- 
cation is,  however,  more  or  less  arbitrary,  since  preaching  is 
essentially  an  expression  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the 
human  spirit  in  all  its  religious  relationships.  The  exegetical 
sermon  proceeds  on  expository  lines  and  introduces  the  vari- 
ous teachings  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  guide  of  life  and  con- 
duct. The  evangelistic  sermon  incites  its  hearers  to  believe 
on  Christ  for  immediate  and  eternal  blessedness,  and  assumes 
that  the  cleavage  between  the  saved  and  the  lost  is  made  by 
the  Word  spoken  and  heard.  The  didactic  sermon  belongs 
to  a  ministry  of  instruction  and  addresses  itself  primarily 
to  the  understanding  and  the  will. 

Exegetical  or  expository  preaching,  which,  viewed  broadly, 
may  now  be  said  to  include  the  textual  type,  was  adopted  by 
most  of  the  Fathers  before  the  fourth  century,  and  was  prac- 
ticed by  St.  Chrysostom,  whose  habit  it  was  to  take  a  sacred 
book  and  expound  it  verse  by  verse  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end.  Spurgeon  and  Alexander  Maclaren  were  modem  ex- 
amples of  this  school;  and  The  People's  Bible  is  Joseph  Park- 
er's monument  as  an  expository  preacher.  There  is  much  to 
be  said  for  this  method,  especially  when  it  deals  with  the  out- 
standing passages  of  Holy  Scriptures,  and  at  the  same  time 
shows  their  setting  in  the  general  purport  of  the  sacred  docu- 

273 


274  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ments.  The  history  of  any  one  of  the  great  words  of  the 
Bible,  such  as  life,  love,  light,  wisdom,  is  more  interesting 
than  that  of  a  campaign.  The  microscopic  study  of  these 
words  and  phrases  and  of  the  text  of  the  two  Testaments  has 
left  its  indelible  mark  upon  the  British  pulpit  and  aided  it 
in  formulating  those  Biblical  interpretations  which  have  ad- 
vanced the  art  of  preaching.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of 
the  foremost  American  divines,  among  them  Edwards  him- 
self, were  given  to  a  type  of  sermon  that  dealt  with  great 
doctrinal  themes.  It  was  an  age  in  which  the  life  of  Pro- 
testantism found  expression  in  schools  of  preaching  that  ex- 
hausted theological  dogmas  and  were  resolute  in  controversy. 
Later  these  sermons  took  another  direction  due  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  young  nation.  "While  to-day  some  American 
preachers  are  expository,  the  larger  number  are  topical  in 
their  mode  of  sermonic  treatment,  and  not  a  few  sacrifice  the 
authority  derived  from  a  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
Bible.  The  necessity  for  expository  preaching  is  accentuated 
by  the  present  condition  of  the  English-speaking  peoples. 
In  spite  of  universal  education  and  of  a  rapidly  rising  stand- 
ard of  civilization,  there  is  no  great  solicitude  in  the  hearts 
of  these  peoples  for  a  religious  revolution.  A  better  city  is 
being  sought  by  them,  but  it  is  not  the  city  in  the  heavens 
whose  maker  and  builder  is  God.  The  confines  of  the  literal 
and  the  temporal  encircle  them,  and  much  of  the  truth 
they  know  is  of  the  kind  which  puts  an  end  to  hope.  One 
would  be  thankful  to  see  their  inevitable  reaction  toward  the 
spiritual,  come  how  it  may,  and  how  could  it  be  better  ex- 
pedited than  by  the  forceful  exposition  of  truths  which  are 
of  fundamental  importance  for  every  age? 

Battles  are  often  fought,  as  every  soldier  knows,  not  as 
they  were  originally  planned,  but  as  they  can  be  fought. 
Similarly,  sermons  are  frequently  shaped  by  current  issues 
which  seem  beyond  the  control  of  reason  or  religion.  The 
advocates  of  radical  doctrines  who  flout  all  existing  systems, 
especially  those  which  claim  to  be  spiritually  authoritative, 
will  in  the  end  be  defeated  by  the  systematic  presentation  of 


PREPAEATION  AND  PRACTICE  275 

those  imperishable  verities  which  make  the  Bible  the  grandest 
moral  heritage  of  mankind.  The  application  of  its  truths 
to  the  life  of  to-day  should  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  surest 
means  for  successfully  combating  anarchy  and  usurpation. 
Expository  preaching  has  its  perils,  however,  and  many  who 
practice  it  weave  into  the  text  meanings  which  rest  upon  the 
slenderest  foundation.  An  undue  pressure  is  put  upon  the 
letter  of  the  Word,  and  one  sometimes  wonders  if  all  that 
is  thus  extracted  would  prove  grateful  to  the  original  au- 
thors. The  utterances  of  psalmists,  prophets  and  apostles 
are  treated  as  though  they  were  nothing  more  than  a  canvas 
for  meticulous  embroideries  of  emendations,  comments  and 
far  fetched  inferences.  In  so  far  as  the  propensity  to  treat 
the  Scriptures  with  the  utmost  reverence  degenerates  into 
letter-worship,  it  becomes  injurious,  and  will  have  to  be 
checked  by  a  more  scientific  theory  of  interpretation,  which 
postulates  that  the  Bible  is  literary  as  well  as  dogmatic.  Dr. 
Dale  dealt  with  its  books  in  a  large  way,  not  in  their  min- 
utiae. His  purpose  was  to  trace  the  wide  outflow  of  thought 
and  feeling  in  the  writer's  mind;  to  fix  the  leading  landmarks 
by  sailing  from  point  to  point  across  the  intervening  deeps, 
and  not  to  work  around  the  coast,  exploring  every  inlet  and 
river.  His  son  assures  us  that  Dale  left  his  hearers  with  a 
distinct  idea  of  the  standpoint  of  the  books  he  expounded, 
and  one  which  was  all  the  clearer  because  it  was  not  over- 
loaded with  detail.^  Follow  his  example:  avoid  additions 
that  submerge  the  text  and  the  highly  speculative  features 
that  have  marred  exegetical  preaching  in  the  past.  Concen- 
trate upon  the  words  and  sentences  of  Scripture  that  stand 
out  like  mountains  on  a  lonely  shore,  upon  the  prophecies, 
gospels  and  epistles,  which  have  in  them  strength,  vastness 
and  loveliness. 

The  evangelistic  type  of  preaching  has  always  expressed 
the  spirit  of  aggressive  Christianity,  and  its  history  has  much 
to  teach  you  concerning  the  intrepidity  and  success  of  God's 
ambassadors  in  every  epoch.     You  can  hardly  discharge  the 

1  A.  W.  Dale:  The  Life  of  R.  W.  Dale,  p.  198. 


276  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

obligations  of  your  calling  until  you  have  made  it  plain  that, 
whatever  may  be  your  attitude  towards  the  evangelical  doc- 
trine, you  share  the  zeal  its  advocates  have  manifested.  They 
formed  my  earliest  ideals  of  preaching,  and  showed  me  that 
the  life-giving  power  of  Christ  was  present  and  active  in  all 
varieties  of  human  experience  and  effort.  Think  of  the  ar- 
dent energies  of  those  masters  of  exhortation,  whose  words 
vibrated  with  that  power,  whose  sermons  were  engraved  on 
the  memories  and  consciences  of  their  hearers,  translating 
them  out  of  the  kingdom  of  darkness  into  that  of  light,  and 
preserving  the  society  to  which  they  ministered  from  moral 
ruin.  Their  knowledge  of  the  plain  people  and  their  resolute 
faith  in  the  redemptive  efScacy  of  the  Cross  were  supple- 
mented by  the  teachings  of  other  preachers  of  the  same  per- 
suasion who  could  establish  theological  positions,  state  argu- 
ments, appreciate  difficulties,  and  solve  doubts.  All  alike  were 
evangelical  men,  and  there  were  many  among  them  whose 
mental  acumen  and  inelusiveness  were  as  pronounced  as  those 
of  preachers  of  any  other  school.  The  provincial  notion 
that  to  be  an  evangelical  in  belief  or  evangelistic  in  method 
is  an  indication  of  intellectual  inferiority,  exists  only  in  those 
circles  whose  habitues  have  not  understood  the  ampler  reason- 
ings and  implications  of  this  widespread  interpretation  of 
the  Gospel. 

Evangelistic  preaching  has  also  been  exempt  from  the  in- 
firmities due  to  isolation.  It  has  not  pinnacled  its  ministries 
far  above  the  ordinary  ways  of  life  nor  made  its  merits  to 
rest  upon  its  remoteness  from  the  crowds.  Its  insistence  that 
notable  gifts  are  the  correlatives  of  divine  grace  and  of  end- 
less labors;  that  no  preacher,  however  situated,  is  bom  to 
cater  to  congenial  coteries,  and  that  it  is  a  perverse,  un- 
manly habit,  without  defense,  to  use  his  talents  for  the  few 
and  hide  them  from  the  multitude,  is  symptomatic  of  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  Evangelistic  preaching  has  been  measur- 
ably justified  in  its  diagnosis  of  the  night  side  of  human 
nature.  The  tyrannies  of  the  lower  self,  its  lawlessness  and 
corruption,  have  been  arraigned  by  ministers  of  the  persua- 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  277 

sion  in  question,  who  were  not  disposed  to  treat  the  Bible's 
somber  denunciations  of  sin  as  mere  phrase-making.  Trans- 
gression, as  they  estimated  it,  was  something  more  than  the 
surfeit  of  human  behavior,  chargeable  to  the  wear  and  tear 
of  evolution,  as  if  men  were  the  creatures  of  their  own  en- 
vironment and  gave  to  iniquity  an  enforced  allegiance.  Sin 
to  them  was  a  heinous  offense  against  God  and  a  relentless 
warfare  upon  righteousness;  but  it  was  often  conceived  of 
by  them  in  the  terms  of  that  hard-and-fast  dualism  which  is 
not  the  best  interpretation  of  life.  They  regarded  the  death 
of  Christ  as  a  full,  perfect  and  sufficient  sacrifice  and  propi- 
tiation for  sin,  a  transcendent  act  of  Divine  Love  by  which 
man  is  reconciled  to  God.  Their  philosophizings  upon 
subjective  and  objective  theories  of  the  Atonement  increased 
the  hold  of  this  doctrine  upon  the  Church  and  showed 
how  it  bore  upon  human  rebellion  and  ruin  and  the  Divine 
Redemption.  Judge  evangelistic  preaching,  then,  by  its  great 
exponents,  among  whom  are  not  a  few  sacred  poets  whose 
lyrics  have  echoed  its  tenets  around  the  world.  Do  not  al- 
low the  caricatures  of  antagonistic  cults  nor  the  distorted 
conceptions  of  hyper-emotional  devotees  to  prejudice  you 
against  the  evangelistic  pulpit.  At  its  best,  as  represented 
by  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys,  Charles  Simeon  and  Henry 
Melville,  Charles  G.  Finney  and  Dwight  L.  Moody,  Charles 
Haddon  Spurgeon  and  Hugh  Price  Hughes,  and  last,  but  not 
least,  by  eminent  missionaries  in  non-Christian  lands,  that 
pulpit  reached  a  zenith  which  many  of  its  censors  could  well 
afford  to  reflect  upon. 

As  I  have  previously  hinted,  the  ministry  which  does  not 
include  periodical  and  specified  efforts  for  the  conversion  of 
souls  and  their  inbringing  into  the  Church  is  not  in  the  full 
sense  a  Christian  ministry.  But  do  not  enter  upon  such 
efforts  without  being  equipped  for  them,  for  no  task  is  more 
exacting  upon  the  intellect  or  the  heart,  or  requires  a  larger 
endowment  of  judicious  sympathy.  It  was,  in  the  words  of 
Silvester  Home,  "the  most  gifted  of  the  Apostles,  St.  Paul, 
whose  spirit  was  fired  with  a  consuming  passion  for  evan- 


278  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

gelism,  before  which  all  the  old  racial  barriers  went  down 
like  a  bowing  wall  and  a  tottering  fence."  Much  evangel- 
istic preaching  would  be  more  effective  if  careful  thought 
were  given  to  the  methods  that  insure  its  fruitfulness.  Re- 
liance upon  the  Spirit  of  God,  earnest  prayer  and  personal 
reconseeration  will  do  much  to  determine  the  substance  and 
manner  of  that  propaganda  which  makes  you  fishers  of  men. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  craving  to  reach  audiences  en  masse, 
without  any  attempt  to  realize  their  innumerable  differences 
of  temperament  and  circumstance,  or  the  relative  degree  of 
their  spiritual  attainments,  has  been  prolific  of  mischief. 
Another  hindrance  to  Evangelism  is  the  idea  that  the  pur- 
pose of  the  Gospel  is  limited  to  personal  salvation,  a  notion 
which  induces  some  of  its  radical  adherents  to  speak  slight- 
ingly of  the  solution  of  social  problems.  And  the  tendency 
to  forget  that  separation  of  the  sheep  from  the  goats  takes 
place  at  the  Judgment  and  not  in  the  pulpit;  that  the  keys 
of  Death  and  Hades  hang  on  one  girdle  and  only  one  con- 
vinces many  thoughtful  people  that  while  it  is  a  fearful 
thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God,  it  would  be 
more  fearful  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  some  of  His  pre- 
sumptuous servants.  For  these  and  other  reasons,  among 
which  are  its  overwrought  appeals  to  prudential  rather  than 
to  more  elevated  motives,  the  evangelistic  type  of  sermon, 
while  all  important  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  not  exhaustive.  It 
does  not  supply  the  unified  basis  for  preaching  which  is  still 
to  seek,  a  basis  as  essential  in  divinity  as  in  philosophy  or 
physical  science.  Neither  the  Church  nor  her  ministers  can 
always  be  in  the  hortatory  mood,  or  favor  one  kind  of  dis- 
course to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest.  Moreover,  preaching 
stales  by  constant  repetition,  a  fact  which  necessitates  the  fre- 
quent migration  of  the  evangelist.  Pulpit  themes  are  speed- 
ily exhausted  when  they  are  derived  from  the  rudiments  of  the 
Gospel.  I  know  that  the  cry  ascends,  ''Make  the  immediate 
conversion  of  souls  your  single  aim!"  and  that  those  who 
utter  it  are  right  so  far  as  the  beginnings  of  the  Christian 
life  are  concerned.     For  the  majority  of  men  and  women 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  279 

trim  their  course  by  the  lodestar  of  a  single  trait  and  can 
be  profoundly  moved  by  elementary  exhortations.  One  preg- 
nant truth  of  the  Evangel  will  often  act  as  surely  as  the  re- 
agent which  cleans  a  tube  of  its  cloudy  chemicals.  But  the 
systematic  development  of  your  parishioners  in  Christian 
ethics  and  the  emphasis  upon  their  progressive  holiness  of  life 
and  habitual  fellowship  with  God,  are  no  less  imperative 
duties  than  that  of  evangelization.  Further,  although  I  share 
the  conviction  of  the  warmest  advocate  of  immediacy  that  the 
genesis  of  the  life  of  faith  is  for  every  heart  its  capital  event, 
I  am  also  persuaded  that  the  noblest  results  of  that  life  are 
accomplished  slowly,  silently,  by  repeated  acts  of  divine  grace 
and  by  its  recipients '  habitual  self-sacrifice.  The  great  works 
of  God,  whether  in  nature  or  in  man,  should  not  be  measured 
by  visible  results  which  impress  vulgar  sense,  but  by  the  end- 
less patience  and  majestic  strength  of  the  Eternal  Workman. 
The  transition  from  the  evangelistic  to  the  didactic  sermon 
is  frequently  made  by  ministers  after  the  first  flush  of  their 
youthful  exuberance  has  subsided.  Many  commence  as  flam- 
ing heralds  of  the  Cross  and  end  as  pastors  who  feed  the 
flock.  This  process  has  never  appeared  altogether  commend- 
able to  me,  since  the  two  types  should  blend  with  the  ex- 
pository type  to  form  one  whole.  Sermons  which  aim  directly 
at  the  conversion  of  souls  and  are  not  wise  beyond  what  is 
written  also  strengthen  the  godly  purpose  of  the  devout  to 
make  their  calling  and  election  sure.  Some  preachers  retain 
an  inkling  of  their  former  fervor  and  appeal  to  their  evening 
audiences  for  surrender  to  Christ,  as  if  these,  like  their  mes- 
sage, could  be  viewed  separately.  Not  all  the  regenerate  rise 
with  the  sun;  not  all  the  unregenerate  tarry  until  nightfall. 
On  the  contrary,  experience  shows  that  the  average  morning 
congregation  has  in  it  those  whose  supine  attitude  toward  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  almost  as  demoralizing  as  the  depravity 
of  the  profane.  Tear  off,  then,  with  a  firm  but  tender  hand 
the  veils  of  pharisaical  complacency,  which  conceal  Divine 
love  and  justice  from  hearers  but  not  doers  of  the  Word. 
Give  free  rein  to  every  variety  of  sermonic  utterance  that 


280  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

satisfies  the  spiritual  needs  around  you.  Do  not  permit  the 
avenues  of  expostulation  and  entreaty  trodden  by  Christian 
apostles  and  prophets  to  be  barred  against  you  by  the  edicts 
of  a  mere  seleetivism.  And  if  you  prefer  didactic  preaching, 
do  not  cozen  yourselves  into  the  belief  that  you  become  a  com- 
petent minister  of  the  Word  only  when  you  eliminate  every 
trace  of  impetuous  zeal  from  your  utterances.  In  this  connec- 
tion the  didactic  preacher  should  remember  that  life  is  his 
greatest  teacher.  For  it  is  one  of  the  numerous  paradoxes  of 
our  calling  that  an  acute  sensibility  to  the  psychology  of  the 
congregation  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  preacher 's  power  and 
also  a  source  of  his  pain.  Yet  men  who  have  been  educated 
for  the  pulpit,  but  whose  readings  in  the  book  of  life  have 
been  few  and  far  between,  do  not  easily  realize  that  sensibility 
unless  they  are  natively  absorbent  of  the  feelings  of  others. 
The  theater  can  teach  us  lessons  bearing  on  this  point.  It 
would  be  possible  to  arrange  a  college  course  for  actors,  but 
I  am  told  it  has  not  been  done.  As  things  are,  the  self- 
taught,  self-supporting  person  who  has  an  ambition  for  his- 
trionics but  has  never  been  inside  a  college,  invariably  makes 
the  renowned  actor;  while  the  college-bred  person  seldom,  if 
ever,  does.  A  well-known  authority  declares  that  stage  genius 
emerges  from  the  ranks  of  poor  but  sturdy  folk  who,  aware 
that  ours  is  a  world  of  toil  and  loss,  nevertheless  cheerfully 
and  courageously  shoulder  its  burdens  without  idle  repinings 
or  even  a  thought  of  surrender.  From  those  ranks  of  the 
obscure,  which  too  many  well-placed  clergymen  know  only  by 
hearsay  or  slight  acquaintance,  the  great  interpreters  of  the 
drama  come.  They  share  the  elemental  impulses,  fears,  hopes, 
hates,  loves,  griefs  and  joys  which  more  artificial  or  less  ex- 
perienced natures  do  not  know.  If  they  share  them  for  the 
sake  of  dramatic  fiction,  how  much  more  should  we  for  the 
sake  of  sacred  truth.  The  constriction  of  the  feelings  in 
didactic  or  philosophic  preaching  is  a  congealing  process 
which  leaves  some  well-informed  but  non-communicative  di- 
vines as  cold  as  moonlit  sculpture.  Be  receptive,  be  sympa- 
thetic, teach  as  Thomas  Arnold  taught,  who  helped  to  change 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  281 

the  superstructure  of  English  society  from  the  master's  desk 
of  a  single  school.  Think  with  the  heart  as  well  as  the  head, 
apprehend  by  intuition  as  well  as  by  judgment.  The  sensi- 
tized teacher,  as  acutely  impressionable  as  he  is  intellectual, 
will  light  up  the  living  Book  for  living  men.  He  will  neither 
sink  into  the  dryness  of  the  erudite  pedant,  nor  the  saccharine 
effusiveness  of  the  emotionalist. 

Many  a  preacher  has  been  a  humbler  sort  of  Browning, 
though  not  even  a  shadow  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  "Without 
the  scholarly  accomplishments  of  the  theologian  in  the  formal 
meaning  of  the  term,  he  has  nevertheless  been  endued  with 
perceptive  wisdom  by  his  varied  experiences  of  God  and 
men,  experiences  which  have  enabled  him  firmly  to  believe 
and  aptly  to  express  vital  truths.  The  larger  number  of  you 
will  have  special  need  of  these  qualities  I  have  mentioned, 
for  you  will  be  pastors  of  individual  churches,  and  preach  to 
congregations  chiefly  composed  of  those  who  have  professed 
faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  purposed  to  lead  a  Chris- 
tian life.  It  is  a  lofty  but  an  onerous  occupation  to  stand 
before  God's  children  for  a  score  or  more  of  years  and  give 
courage  and  guidance  to  those  who  by  patient  continuance  in 
well-doing  seek  for  glory,  honor  and  immortality.  There  is 
a  widespread  conviction  in  religious  circles  that  modem 
preaching  is  defective  in  its  instructive  qualities.  But  if 
there  is  to  be  teaching  in  the  pulpit,  there  must  be  an  in- 
tellectual movement  in  the  pew,  and  laymen  and  ministers 
alike  will  have  to  serve  God  not  only  with  the  heart  but  also 
with  the  mind.  The  assured  gains  of  the  teaching  prophet 
will  vie  with  any  accruing  to  expository  genius,  evangelistic 
fervor,  or  imaginative  eloquence.  A  striking  instance  of  those 
gains  is  found  in  the  contrast  between  two  distinguished  min- 
istries in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  which  has  enjoyed  the 
widely  different  but  complementary  preaching  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  and  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott.  After  the  amazing 
breadth  and  diversity  of  the  first  pulpit  celebrity  of  his  age 
came  the  quiet,  cogent  and  logical  sermons  of  the  modest 
saint  and  scholar.     Dr.  Abbott  had  not  the  slightest  intention 


282  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

of  becoming  Beecher's  successor,  but  as  his  friend  and  ad- 
mirer he  stepped  into  the  breach  until  it  should  be  manned 
by  a  second  Beecher.  Needless  to  say  this  paragon  could  not 
be  found,  and  the  Christian  world  is 'familiar  with  the  sequel. 
The  reasoned  and  weighty  utterances  of  Dr.  Abbott ;  the  sin- 
gular appositeness  and  clearness  of  his  exposition  of  the  Bible 
at  a  critical  era  in  its  interpretation;  the  wisdom  and  catho- 
licity of  his  application  of  the  truth  he  knew ;  and  his  sub- 
mission in  thought  and  deed  to  the  law  of  Christ,  renewed 
the  life  of  an  historic  church  which  for  many  years  has  been 
the  cathedral  of  American  Puritanism.  Reflect  upon  this 
demonstration  of  the  possibilities  of  a  didactic  ministry, 
which  was  also  in  the  best  sense  inspirational,  and  it  will 
obviate  the  necessity  for  further  comment  upon  a  type  of 
preaching  that  not  only  carries  on  the  religious  culture  of 
a  congregation  but  becomes  a  world-wide  instrumentality  for 
the  furtherance  of  the  Gospel,  in  ways  eminently  worthy  of 
the  manifold  grace  of  God. 

It  would  seem  to  be  the  natural  conclusion  that  the  ex- 
egetical,  evangelistic  and  didactic  types  should  be  employed 
in  due  proportion  for  the  comprehensive  purposes  of  preach- 
ing and  upon  this  conclusion  every  sermon,  however  classified, 
can  rest  its  case.  Their  various  types  will  have  to  be  in- 
timately connected  with  the  germinal  ideal  of  preaching,  which 
is  best  seen  in  its  final  aim.  That  aim  has  been  defined  as  the 
entire  reconstruction  of  manhood  after  the  pattern  laid  down 
by  St.  Paul,  in  "the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  unto  the  work 
of  ministering,  unto  the  building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ : 
till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  fullgrown  man,  unto 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ. "  ^  If 
.this  description  of  your  office  is  understood  as  meaning  the 
reconstructed  human  society  through  regenerated  men,  it  will 
be  amply  sufficient  for  your  purposes.  In  it  is  the  basic 
and  unifying  idea  of  all  types  of  preaching,  an  ideal  which 
blends    individual   with    universal    good,    and    presages    the 

2  Ephesians  iv:  12-13. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  283 

truth  of  another  familiar  Pauline  passage  concerning  the 
whole  creation  which  groans  and  travails  in  pain  together 
until  now,  waiting  "for  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of  God."' 
Preaching  as  thus  conceived  releases  those  flights  of  prophecy 
which  ennoble  the  sermon,  while  at  the  same  time  it  remains 
practical  in  matters  of  character  and  conduct.  I  know  that 
our  desire  for  the  new  creation  in  Christ  of  a  transformed 
earth,  which  brings  all  powers  of  body  and  soul,  forms  of 
service  and  sacrifice,  tribes  and  kindred  and  policies  of  na- 
tions into  conformity  with  the  Everlasting  Will,  may  seem  to 
materialistic  thinkers  like  the  longing  of  the  moth  for  the 
star.  But  God  Himself  has  designed  it,  and  the  Gospel  makes 
known  the  design.  It  is  interwoven  in  the  solemn  predic- 
tions of  the  Sacred  Oracles;  it  shapes  their  promises  and 
precepts,  and  peals  forth  in  their  judgment  and  their  mercy. 
Tennyson 's  famous  line : 

"Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be," 

seems  to  anticipate  a  future  revelation  which  would  adapt 
Christianity  to  the  advancing  needs  of  civilization.  Jowett 
of  Balliol  believed  that  orthodoxy  was  fatigued,  and  would 
have  to  be  revived  and  revised.  Yet  we  look,  I  think,  not  to 
any  change  in  the  fundamentals,  but  to  their  deeper  appre- 
hension by  Christian  consciousness  and  their  dominance  in 
the  trend  of  Christian  commonwealths.  Shall  we  abandon  the 
ideal  of  preaching  upon  which  that  apprehension  and  domi- 
nance humanly  depend?  On  the  contrary,  since  it  is  the 
Eternal  Spirit  Who  sp^eaks  the  life-giving  Word,  we  cannot 
forbear  to  utter  it  as  He  shall  direct  us,  and  for  those  preach- 
ers who  desire  to  bring  their  thoughts  into  subjection  to  the 
thoughts  of  God,  who  would  view  things  as  He  views  them 
and  not  as  custom  makes  them  appear,  there  is  a  great  glad- 
ness in  their  surrender  to  the  perfecting  Idedl  of  their  am- 
bassadorship. Do  not,  however,  force  yourself  in  any  direc- 
tion, nor  forget  that  while  the  truths  you  explain  are  eternal, 
s  Romans  viii :  19,  22. 


284  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

the  explanations  are  temporary.  Cast  your  nets  into  the 
sweep  of  the  wide  waters  of  humanity  and  divinity;  be  ex- 
pository, hortatory,  evangelistic,  didactic,  topical,  prophetical, 
as  the  sermon  and  the  circumstances  seem  to  require,  but  in  all 
instances  be  vital. 

Variety  is  another  element  in  the  preaching  which  has  a 
funded  interest  for  every  sort  of  mind.  To  achieve  it  suc- 
cessfully include  in  your  survey  the  reflections  of  philosophers 
and  historians,  poets  and  essayists ;  the  unf oldings  of  Nature 's 
workings  by  scientists,  and  aught  else  which  conduces  to  the 
exposition  of  j^our  theme.  The  pleasure  derived  from  contem- 
plating the  development  of  these  varied  pursuits  of  knowledge 
is  very  real,  but  it  is  not  equal  to  the  pleasure  of  interpreting 
them  in  behalf  of  religious  edification.  One  of  the  best 
preachers  of  the  age  draws  upon  scientific  and  agnostic  litera- 
ture for  many  of  his  most  effective  illustrations.  From  the 
first  he  revolted  against  the  unctuous  boasts  and  pitiful  per- 
formances of  much  that  was  then  widely  accepted  as  evan- 
gelical preaching,  and  his  ministry  has  been  a  rebuke  of  the 
superficial  mentality  that  dwarfs  the  presentation  of  the  Gos- 
pel. He  took  spoil  from  the  foes  of  faith ;  turned  their  flank, 
and  declared  that  evolution  in  the  hands  of  Darwin  supported 
religion,  and  fiction  in  the  pages  of  Thomas  Hardy  mirrored 
the  blackest  gloom  of  theology  without  its  brightness.  Brown- 
ing discovered  in  Caliban  upon  Setehos  the  deep  degradation 
of  the  human  heart ;  and  the  romantic  savage  with  his  flowery 
barbarism,  as  delineated  by  Rousseau  and  other  optimists 
of  his  school,  was  a  far  different  and  a  sadder  creature  in  the 
faithful  depiction  of  the  modem  anthropologist.  The  con- 
clusion drawn  by  this  eminent  preacher  is  that  nearly  every 
New  Testament  doctrine  that  teaches  the  abnormal  bias  of 
mankind  toward  evil  and  the  necessity  for  its  redemption  is 
confirmed  by  the  scientific  and  skeptical  thinking  of  the  age, 
a  conclusion  the  recent  war  seems  to  sustain.  F.  W.  Robert- 
son said  he  read  Shakespeare,  Wordsworth,  Tennyson  and 
Coleridge  for  views  of  man  to  meditate  upon,  instead  of 
theological  caricatures  of  humanity;  and  went  out  into  the 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  285 

country  to  feel  God ;  and  read  the  life  of  Christ  to  understand, 
love  and  adore  Him.  Evidently  these  pulpit  masters  were 
largely  benefited  by  material  which  some  preachers  anathema- 
tize, because  they  lack  the  astuteness  and  breadth  to  employ 
it  rightly.  The  best  sermons  resemble  a  cathedral  in  which 
several  styles  of  architecture  blend  well  together  as  at  Win- 
chester. Here  you  have  the  massive  Norman  shell  encased 
in  the  later  Early  English  Gothic,  the  stately  framework  of 
nave,  aisles,  transepts,  ambulatories,  chapels  and  choir,  upon 
which  a  profusion  of  detail  has  been  lavished.  Similarly 
the  sermon-builder  selects  massive  principles  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, fits  each  idea  into  its  place,  is  jealous  for  the  accuracy 
and  symmetry  of  the  whole,  and  determined  that  fancies  shall 
not  usurp  the  realities  upon  which  his  imaginative  treatment 
depends.  Then  just  as  the  instreaming  light,  mellowed  by  its 
passage  through  many  decorated  windows,  gives  beauty  to  the 
ancient  fane,  so  upon  such  a  sermon  as  I  have  indicated  falls 
the  radiance  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

This  variety  in  preaching  is  likely  to  correspond  with  the 
variety  of  motives  which  bring  men  to  Christ.  Some  come  to 
Him  under  a  sense  of  duty;  others  in  the  hope  of  escaping 
from  the  moral  meagerness  and  dissatisfaction  of  their  lives ; 
still  others,  because  they  are  driven  to  Him  by  those  instincts 
of  the  spiritual  being  which  give  them  no  rest  till  they  have 
found  it  in  Christy  and  the  vast  majority,  because  they  are 
profoundly  conscious  that  He  alone  can  deliver  them  from 
sin.  Their  repeated  failures  and  uncertainty  of  themselves 
in  the  presence  of  the  most  ignoble  temptations  accentuate 
their  feeling  of  need.  Again,  not  a  few  of  His  incipient 
disciples  are  generous  in  their  moral  aspirations.  The  ideals 
of  a  goodness  that  seems  unattainable  apart  from  Christ  chal- 
lenge their  backwardness,  and  once  they  learn  that  His  laws 
are  promises  and  that  every  command  He  gives  carries  with 
it  the  strength  to  obey  it,  their  faith  is  enlisted  and  their 
vision  purified.  Dr.  Dale  pertinently  remarks  that  "the  City 
of  God  has  twelve  gates:  every  one  of  them  is  a  gate  of  pearl. 
What  presumption  it  is  to  insist  that  unless  men  enter  by  a 


286  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

particular  gate  they  cannot  enter  at  all !  Let  them  enter  by 
the  gate  which  is  nearest  to  them.  Nor  should  we  insist  that 
to  reach  the  gate  itself  there  is  only  one  path. ' '  *  The  neces- 
sary adjunct  of  variety  is  found  in  the  maxim  Le  ccBur  dans 
le  metier,  which  applies  not  only  to  preaching  but  to  the  whole 
field  of  human  endeavor.  Your  heart  in  your  work  is  the  key 
to  pulpit  success. 

Preachers  of  an  ardent  temperament  should  cultivate  the 
moderation  which  offsets  their  extravagance,  while  those  of 
a  phlegmatic  sort  need  the  quickening  impulse.  You  speak 
effectively  not  by  suppressing  but  by  commingling  opposite 
qualities  of  thought  and  utterance.  He  who  is  afraid  of 
enthusiasm  should  seek  its  impetus;  his  sanguine  brother 
should  incline  to  sobering  reflection.  Could  some  men's  mat- 
ter be  given  to  other  men  for  delivery  and  some  men's  de- 
livery be  given  to  other  men's  matter,  the  exchange  would 
be  mutually  beneficial.  Preaching  reiterates  generally  ac- 
cepted religious  truths  and  theories,  which  require  more  than 
the  wisdom  of  this  world  for  their  enforcement,  and  its  prac- 
tice in  any  of  the  forms  mentioned  falls  back  upon  the  God 
Who  inspires  its  sources.  His  understanding  of  your  diffi- 
culties is  a  pledge  of  their  removal  and  the  fact  that  you 
face  them  with  a  clear  idea  of  their  character  is  for  you  a 
religious  experience  of  no  mean  value.  Confronted  with  sin, 
suffering  and  death,  you  become  aware  of  that  dynamic  from 
above  which  makes  you  conquerors  of  these  things.  What 
matter  then  the  little  controversies  upon  which  some  preachers 
have  wasted  time  and  energy,  the  sterile  prescriptions  and 
devices  which  are  but  artifices  of  the  mortal  mind?  ~  Your 
ministry  proclaims  the  divine  redemption,  its  vigils  are  a 
living  fellowship  with  the  Risen  Christ,  its  fidelity  to  every 
obligation  secures  His  blessing  upon  it. 

You  must  articulate  the  bones  in  the  body  of  your  sermon, 
or  its  adverse  fate  is  sealed.  Assuredly  principles  and  facts 
have  to  precede  their  consequences,  and  the  reasonings  which 
develop  these  be  so  closely  related  that  each  argument  will 

*Nine  Lectures  on  Preaching,  p_  217. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  287 

contribute  to  the  strength  of  the  discourse.  Some  ministers 
prefer  to  conceal  the  vertebrae  of  their  homily;  others  have 
in  mind  its  beginning  but  not  its  end,  and  set  out  to  write  it, 
not  knowing  whither  they  go;  a  third  group  puts  forth  in 
stated  form  the  several  heads  to  be  discussed.  The  first 
method  is  perhaps  the  best,  the  second  decidedly  the  worst, 
the  third  the  least  practiced  now;  yet  all  three  have  their 
good  features,  and  one  need  not  dogmatize  about  them.  The 
preacher  who  fully  develops  his  outline  and  also  clothes  it 
skilfully  should  be  your  model.  After  accurately  surveying 
his  lines  of  thought,  he  pursues  them  with  a  harmonious 
strength  of  purpose  and  presently  the  audience  finds  itself, 
to  its  delight  and  profit,  in  the  stateliest  palaces  of  truth  and 
reason.  He  who  follows  the  second  method,  composing  his 
sermons  solely  to  clear  his  own  mind  and  delivering  them  as 
written,  may  end  in  bewildering  the  minds  of  his  hearers. 
Yet  frequently  a  seed  thought  becomes  its  own  inspiration  and 
displays  a  self-direction  which  appears  in  the  sequel.  I  do 
not  recommend  you  to  do  this  unless  what  you  write  is 
treated  as  raw  material  to  be  recast  and  definitely  shaped  ac- 
cording to  a  previous  design.  The  third  method,  although 
somewhat  archaic,  has  the  pronounced  merit  of  stamping  upon 
the  memory  the  points  it  enunciates,  and  frequently  these  are 
retained  after  the  rest  of  the  sermon  is  lost. 

II 

George  Eliot  once  spoke  of  "the  disease  of  other-worldli- 
ness"  as  the  affliction  of  the  preacher.  If  a  habitual  sense 
of  the  invisible  is  a  disease,  then  you  cannot  have  it  too 
virulently ;  for  you  must  feel  and  know  the  grandeur  of  things 
unseen  and  eternal.  Concrete  details,  inductive  instances, 
immediate  objectives,  are  dependent  for  their  effect  upon 
your  communion  with  the  spiritual  world,  and,  as  Hawthorne 
observed,  the  truest  condition  of  that  communion  is  to  keep 
the  imagination  sane  and  vigorous.  This  is  too  rarely  done 
to  enable  preachers  to  move  naturally  in  the  sublimest  of  all 


288  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

themes  and  experiences.  Therefore  I  would  impress  upon 
you  the  value  of  that  gift,  which,  above  all  others,  sustains 
preaching  and  secures  the  closest  attention  of  its  hearers. 
Imagination  is  not  only  specifically  fitted,  when  legitimately 
exercised,  to  meet  the  tastes  of  the  cultured,  but  it  has  also 
much  to  offer  to  the  prosaic  multitudes  which  are  absorbed 
in  their  constant  struggle  with  daily  needs  and  cares.  Forma- 
tive influence  may  be  a  prerogative  of  genius,  but  talent 
quickened  by  the  imagination  often  becomes  nearly  as  intui- 
tive as  genius.  We  should  contemplate  human  nature  not 
in  the  stiff  and  precise  ways  which  conventional  sermons  adopt, 
but  as  a  great  novelist  sees  and  tries  to  describe  it.  Against 
its  shortcomings  and  dangers  you  set  in  their  full  force  the 
majestic  ideas  of  God,  of  Christ  and  of  the  Cross,  arresting 
its  downward  drift,  handling  aright  its  complex  sensibilities, 
and  touching  its  subtle,  delicate  shades  to  nobler  issues.  How 
can  this  be  done  unless  we  are  at  every  stage  anticipatory 
and  busy  making  over  everything  with  which  we  deal  into 
forms  more  suited  to  the  real  ends  of  life?  Such  work  is  in 
the  best  sense  imaginative  and  spiritually  constructive.  For 
man  comes  to  the  end  of  his  material  demands  to  find  that  he 
is  only  at  the  beginning  of  his  moral  requirements.  He  also 
has  a  hunger  of  soul  which  nothing  seems  able  to  appease. 
Longings  which  nothing  visible  can  allay  torture  him.  If  he 
can  be  assured  that  there  is  no  human  being  who  does  not 
have  a  special  role  to  play  in  the  great  drama  of  the  race; 
that  no  spirit  is  so  insignificant  as  not  to  be  unspeakably  dear 
to  God  Who  made  the  visible  worlds,  or  so  feeble  that  its  ac- 
tions may  not  have  momentous  consequences  long  after  this 
material  system  has  been  dissolved;  if,  in  brief,  he  is  per- 
suaded that  he  has  a  lasting  place  in  the  general  scheme,  for 
him  chaos  is  supplanted  by  benevolent  rule.  In  the  use  of 
the  imagination  the  preacher  bodies  forth  the  forms  of  God's 
love  and  power  which  thus  control  the  universal  order  and 
reconcile  its  rational  creatures. 

"It  is  difficult,"  as  Professor  Winchester  remarks,   **to 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  289 

give  a  clear  definition  of  imagination,  partly  because  the  word 
often  seems  to  be  used  in  a  vague  and  mysterious  way,  as  if 
there  were  something  inexplicable  in  the  power  it  names,  but 
principally  because  the  same  word  is  used  to  cover  several 
mental  processes  alike  but  by  no  means  the  same. "  ^  Of  the 
creative  imagination,  he  says  that  it  ''spontaneously  selects 
among  the  elements  given  by  experience  and  combines  them 
into  new  wholes.  If  this  combination  be  arbitrary  or  irra- 
tional, the  faculty  is  called  fancy. ' ' "  Hence  we  have  to  dif- 
ferentiate between  imagination  and  fancy;  the  former  is  so 
filled  with  the  essence  of  actuality  that  it  is  truth  in  senti- 
ment and,  conversely,  sentiment  in  truth.  The  poets,  who 
often  have  best  understood  Jesus,  more  nearly  told  not  only 
what  He  taught  but  what  He  was  than  many  of  His  pro- 
fessed exponents.  Innumerable  saints  have  also  interpreted 
religion  through  the  imagination,  and  resemble  the  poets  in 
their  intimacy  of  appreciation.  Familiarity  with  sacred 
realities  is  the  sustenance  of  the  preacher's  imaginative 
power.  Where  there  is  no  foundation  of  fact  for  imagination 
to  spring  from  there  is  a  flagging  of  its  sure  upward  flight. 
Shelley's  intellect  was  not  given  to  the  grasp  of  truth  so 
much  as  to  the  refinement  of  theories  and  the  distillation  of 
exquisite  abstractions.  The  result  was  that  even  his  super- 
lative gift  runs  somewhat  riotous  in  an  etherealism  that 
would  have  been  more  impressive  had  his  understanding 
been  more  profound.  Idealizations  are  legitimate  only  when 
they  consist  of  what  one  has  verified,  and  for  the  preacher 
possessing  the  qualities  of  which  I  have  spoken,  who  of 
necessity  proclaims  themes  which  surpass  the  choicest  ex- 
pression, "the  ideal  is  never  properly  contrasted  with  the 
true,  but  with  the  actual. ' '  Such  being  the  case,  he  dwells  in 
a  realm  of  his  own,  where  he  cannot  rest  content  until  he  has 
brought  others  into  its  commonwealth.  It  was  Beecher's  sur- 
passing virtue  as  a  preacher  that  he  could  make  the  unseen 
the  most  real  of  dwelling  places  for  the  soul.     Despite  their 

8  Some  Principles  of  Literary  Critieiam,  p.  119. 
« Ibid.,  pp.  123-124. 


290  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

rebellious  selves,  those  who  heard  him  felt  that  he  knew 
of  what  he  was  speaking;  that  it  was  not  the  product  of  en- 
thusiasm, but  of  a  reasoned  use  of  faith  which  I  should  call  the 
highest  emploj'^raent  of  the  preacher's  imagination. 

I  have  spoken  of  poets  as  our  mentors;  but  are  they  not 
more  free  of  earth's  contingencies  than  we?  Paradise  Lost, 
as  Bagehot  observes,  does  not  represent  the  time  of  Charles  II, 
nor  The  Excursion  the  first  decades  of  the  last  century.  On 
the  contrary,  Milton  withdrew  from  the  sons  of  Belial  of  his 
day,  and  in  his  poetic  liberty  consigned  them  to  outer  dark- 
ness; and  Wordsworth  resented  the  intrusion  of  manufactur- 
ing England  upon  his  priesthood  of  Nature.  But  the  case  of 
the  preacher  is  entirely  different.  From  its  inception  his 
work  is  inextricably  involved  in  surrounding  life;  he  has  to 
cast  his  sermons  in  the  mould  of  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  re- 
ceiving from  them  in  sympathetic  response  that  which  he 
pours  upon  them  in  his  discourse.  This  concurrence  of  pulpit 
and  pew  as,  in  a  sense,  the  joint  parents  of  preaching,  is  not 
sufficiently  recognized  by  advocates  of  a  homiletical  doctrine  of 
perfection.  Yet  notwithstanding  the  limitation,  you  are  not 
so  bound  down  that  you  must  be  what  the  age  would  have  you 
be,  or  else  little  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  the  preacher  can 
break  the  chain  of  custom  by  his  imagination  and  gain  the 
freedom  he  requires. 

There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  the  process  of  envisaging  what 
has  been  experienced.  Past,  present  and  future  are  imagina- 
tion's sphere;  art,  literature  and  science  depend  upon  its  exer- 
cise. Physical  laws  and  theories,  philosophical  and  political 
systems  are  due  its  intuitions  quite  as  much  as  to  observation 
and  experiment.  Whatever  scientific  thinkers,  historians, 
statesmen,  as  well  as  orators,  poets  and  artists,  have  heard, 
seen,  learned  and  laid  up  in  their  memories — an  unindexed 
and  measureless  quantity — is  transfused  and  brooded  over 
by  the  imagination.  It  was  one  of  Goethe's  axioms  that 
imagination  is  the  necessary  gifts  of  every  great  thinker.  The 
seemingly  unhampered  workings  of  minds  like  Newton,  Dar- 
win, Gibbon,  Burke,  Hamilton  and  Lincoln  vindicate  Goethe's 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  291 

belief :  they  cannot  be  accounted  for  apart  from  the  possession 
and  exercise  of  that  faculty.  Apply  the  process  to  the 
preacher  in  the  act  of  making  his  sermon.  The  loathsome 
forms  of  sin  and  the  winsome  forms  of  grace  take  shape  before 
his  mental  vision.  He  is  stirred  by  detestation  of  iniquity, 
and  lost  in  adoration  of  goodness.  The  separation  between  un- 
righteousness and  righteousness,  which  no  human  mind  has 
fully  traversed,  is  visualized  by  his  imagination.  Through  it 
he  anticipates-  the  presence  of  his  people  and  provides  for  their 
respective  needs:  consolation  for  the  sorrowful,  relief  for 
the  heavy  laden,  entreaty  for  the  wayward,  rebuke  for  the 
perverse,  stimulus  for  the  zealous,  devotion  for  the  saintly. 
Thus  the  morning  and  evening  sacrifices  are  prepared,  and 
while  they  evolve,  visions  of  departed  ones  hover  before  him: 
of  those  who  are  nearer  to  him  in  the  spirit  than  they  were  in 
the  flesh.  The  innocence  of  childhood,  the  buoyancy  of  youth, 
the  gravity  of  manhood,  the  pathos  of  age,  are  photographed 
upon  his  mental  retina.  Obvious  truths  and  others  not  so  ob- 
vious pass  -before  him,  some  of  which  he  greets  as  familiar  ac- 
quaintances, while  others  he  has  yet  to  know  more  fully. 
His  mind  is  advantaged  by  his  glimpses  of  the  hills  of  God ; 
of  Sinai,  where  the  Law  was  given;  of  Horeb,  where  the 
prophet  of  restoration  was  recommissioned ;  of  Hermon,  where 
one  of  Christ 's  transfigurations  was  witnessed  by  His  adoring 
disciples.  He  too  is  seen,  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life, 
whose  eternal  voice  is  ever  saying.  Come  unto  me ;  believe  in 
me ;  for  I  am  your  strength  and  your  peace.  All  are  mounts 
of  light,  toward  which  the  preacher  would  fain  direct  the 
worshiping  gaze  of  his  hearers.  Then,  if  ever,  his  creative 
faculties  subsidize  the  present  and  the  future  from  the  treas- 
ures of  the  past,  and  memory  seconded  by  imagination  renders 
him  royal  service.  In  the  pulpit  his  prepared  word  levels  all 
distinctions,  exudes  a  vital  atmosphere  and  makes  its  own 
progress.  The  clew  to  its  more  mystical  meanings  is  well 
expressed  in  William  Blake 's  stanza : 

"I  give  you  'the  end  of  a  golden  string ; 
Only  wind  it  into  a  ball, 


292  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

It  will  lead  you  in  at  Heaven's  gate, 
Built  in  Jerusalem's  wall."  ^ 

His  idealizations  are  the  fruits  of  imagination,  which  is  even 
more  prolific  in  its  moral  and  religious  uses  than  in  those  of 
art  and  literature.  The  egotistical  abuses  of  reason  are  di- 
minished by  this  consecrated  faculty.  It  furnishes  the 
prophet  with  those  keys  to  the  heavenly  mysteries  which  the 
priest  has  so  often  claimed  as  his  exclusive  property. 

Some  preachers  repress  the  intellectual  affinities  which  imag- 
ination imparts,  confining  themselves  to  bare  allusions  and 
parsimonious  references,  admiring  the  prosaic  for  its  own 
sake,  and  saying  precisely  what  their  hearers  expect  them  to 
say.  Such  consistency  does  not  protect  the  pulpit  against 
monotony,  nor  attract  a  large  constituency  to  its  commonplace 
utterances.  Preaching  without  imagination  may  be  compared 
to  an  observatory  without  a  telescope,  and  the  preacher  to  one 
who  watches  his  own  shadow  on  a  wall.  Many  men  miscon- 
ceive imagination  and  do  not  realize  that  it  is  a  truly  creative 
faculty.  They  look  upon  it  as  a  mere  ebullience  of  misdirected 
emotion  and  incoherent  thought,  vague,  formless,  uncertain, 
expressive  of  the  credulity  of  those  who  revel  in  the  chimeri- 
cal. I  have  heard  it  spoken  against  'as  a  habit  of  phantasy, 
of  image-making,  akin  to  looseness  of  statement  and  watery 
rhetoric,  given  to  trailing  wreaths  of  metaphor  which  smother 
the  message.  That  imagination  can  be  subjected  to  serious 
misuse  is  undeniable,  but  it  is  never  in  itself  a  mark  of  weak- 
ness, although  it  may  become  a  source  of  weakness  when  com- 
bined with  a  feeble  judgment  or  a  dreamy  character.  Na- 
tively it  is  a  permanent  and  pronounced  element  of  mental 
power  and  of  preaching  ability.^  Napoleon,  who  possessed 
it  to  a  phenomenal  degree,  asserted  that  it  ruled  the  world; 
and  his  career  demonstrated  that  an  unbridled  imagination 
may  be  as  dangerous  as  a  mettled  horse  which  breaks  the  rid- 
er's neck.  If  you  would  insure  correct  psychological  condi- 
tions of  thinking,  and  hold  its  data  succinctly  before  your 

7  Jerusalem,  p.  98. 

8  Borden  P.  Bowne:  Psychological  Theory,  p.  277. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  293 

minds,  cultivate  the  gift  and  faculty  divine  which  "inter- 
prets the  little  you  may  know  into  the  vast  infinite  you  may 
feel,"  and  enables  you  to  sow  the  seed  of  the  Word,  not  on 
the  thin  soil  of  the  superficial  but  in  the  deep  loam  of  the 
permanent. 

The  historian  is  compelled  to  nurture  the  power  of  reproduc- 
ing personalities  and  events  of  the  past,  in  order  to  present 
them  to  the  ready  recognition  of  his  readers.  This  is  still 
more  obligatory  for  the  preacher  because,  unlike  the  historian, 
he  must,  as  we  have  said,  penetrate  the  unseen.  For  the  one 
figures  are  a  luxury,  for  the  other  an  essential.  The  prophets 
of  the  Eternal  have  no  choice,  their  message  has  to  be  clothed 
with  the  draperies  of  imagination.  You  are  forever  putting 
sacred  things  together  in  your  thought,  continually  wonder- 
ing how  the  ruling  ideas  of  revelation  were  evolved,  or  specu- 
lating upon  what  they  may  yet  be.  Your  resulting  concep- 
tions must  be  vivid  enough  to  make  such  a  lasting  impression 
upon  others  that  the  imagined  world  into  which  you  translate 
them  may  become  more  thrilling  than  the  real  one. 

Few  things  are  more  fearful  in  speech  than  imagination 
without  taste,  unless  it  be  imagination  without  facts.  The 
*well-balanced  preacher  is  not  suspended  between  the  droop- 
ing wings  of  superfluous  and  supposititious  statements, — an 
agitation  without  progress  of  which  no  practiced  orator  would 
be  guilty.  His  "inner  vision  is  touched  into  sight  by  the 
transforming  -grace  of  the  All-Seeing  Spirit, ' '  his  flights  are 
steadied  by  the  strong  pinions  of  reason  and  of  faith.  His 
intellectually  receptive  nature  feeds  imagination  with  the 
truths  it  translates  into  the  glories  and  the  shadows  of  the 
Beyond.  Let  your  quest  for  such  truths  be  deliberate  and 
conscientious,  but  do  not  permit  it  to  interfere  with  the  imag- 
inative presentation  of  the  truth  you  acquire.  Where  this 
disparity  between  acquirement  and  presentation  occurs,  ser- 
mons have  a  jarring  note ;  they  do  not  convey  to  the  hearts  of 
others  the  verities  upon  which  the  preacher's  grasp  is  intellec- 
tual rather  than  imaginative. 

Further,  so  far  from  being  a  spontaneous  impulse  of  the 


294  AMBASSADORS  OP  GOD 

preaching  moment,  your  creative  imagination  requires  long 
intervals  of  stilled  and  musing  meditation.  It  is  the  "un- 
ravished  bride  of  quietness,"  the  "foster-child  of  silence  and 
slow  time. ' '  Its  processes  also  entail  your  self -discovery.  Its 
wise  use,  which  instinctively  rejects  extravagances  and  re- 
fuses to  be  severed  from  its  base  in  reality,  is  seldom,  if  ever, 
found  in  shallow,  acrid  or  unduly  emotional  temperaments. 
It  does  not  thrive  in  the  moisture  of  irrelevant  sentiment  nor 
as  the  mere  factor  of  embellished  fiction.  Inflated  rhapsodies 
are  foreign  to  its  sway,  and  whatever  relations  it  holds  to  art 
and  beauty  are  subordinated  in  the  consecrated  preacher  to  the 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God  and  all  that  His  presence  implies. 
Its  originating  qualities  go  hand  in  hand  with  your  assimilat- 
ing powers,  and  those  who  mistake  intellectual  dawdling  for 
thorough-paced  reflection  will  prove  the  truth  of  Joubert's 
saying  that  "he  who  has  imagination  without  learning  has 
wings  but  no  feet."  It  is  a  safe  assumption  that  the  irreg- 
ularities and  infirmities  of  the  preacher's  imagination  are  in 
closest  correspondence  with  those  of  his  heart  and  mind,  and, 
conversely,  that  in  its  lawful  exercise  his  gifts  and  virtues  are 
at  their  best.  Hence  you  have  on  the  one  hand  the  deplorable 
irreverence,  vulgarity  and  sensationalism  which  to-day  corrupt 
some  schools  of  preaching ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  those  high 
employments  of  the  imagination  which  detach  it  from  the 
vagaries  of  fancy  and  make  the  sermons  it  inspires  sources 
of  edification.  In  nothing  is  the  actual  level  of  the  minister's 
inner  life  more  fully  disclosed  than  in  his  imaginative  faculty. 
It  reveals  the  highlands  and  the  lowlands  of  personal  charac- 
ter and  piety.  By  its  means  holy  men  of  old  made  known  not 
only  the  will  of  God  but  their  own  character  and  tendencies. 
Our  Lord  took  toll  of  imagination  and  though  as  the  Su- 
preme Teacher  Who  was  the  Truth  He  taught  He  knocked  at 
many  doors,  He  chose  to  enter  at  "the  ivory  gate  and  golden." 
His  parables,  which  overflow  with  the  heart  of  the  Father, 
were  divine  verities  embodied  in  a  tale,  proving  nothing  syllo- 
gistically,  communicating  everything  necessary.  As  master- 
pieces of  the  message  of  Jesus  they  elevate  the  minds  to  the 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  295 

high  places  where  tumult  ceases  and  spiritual  perceptions 
widen.  It  was  of  the  essence  of  Christ's  nature  that  He 
should  be  the  Prince  of  imagination,  and  His  servants  who 
have  fellowship  with  Him  share  in  some  degree  the  endue- 
ments  of  this  august  faculty.  The  preacher  who  employs  an 
imagination  regulated  by  his  communion  with  God  and  by  the 
word  of  the  Gospel,  is  as  one  whose  feet  are  on  the  lofty  moun- 
tains, whose  eyes  survey  the  truths  that  burn  like  stars  above. 
He  becomes  aware  of  latent  experiences  underlying  his  im- 
mediate experience  and  identifying  themselves  with  the  ^great 
past.  Thus  does  this  gift  wave  along  the  corridors  of  Time  a 
flaming  brand  kindled  in  eternal  fires. 

You  will  encounter  in  the  Church  individuals  who  cling  to 
abstractions  and  are  averse  to  their  personification.  Rivers  of 
feelings  which  sometimes  rush  through  the  preacher's  heart 
and  make  his  veins  tingle  are  contrary  to  their  habit.  They 
move  as  the  dead  among  the  living,  devitalized,  vacuous  and 
calm.  Utility,  technical  skill  and  obvious  statements  are 
their  academic  gods.  What  has  happened  because  they  voy- 
age with  the  crowd?  Children,  who  should  be  taught  the 
higher  uses  of  imagination,  are  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  moving-picture  theater  and  the  maudlin  dramas  which 
bewilder  or  stain  the  juvenile  mind.  Adolescents,  who 
might  have  received  at  least  inklings  of  the  significance  of 
the  greater  prophets  of  the  Invisible,  tumble  about  with  mor- 
bid appetite  in  crude  mixtures  of  sentimental  or  materialistic 
presentations,  and  feed  their  idle  dreams  upon  a  thousand 
caricatures  that  pass  for  truth.  Religionists  who  practice  the 
old  devices  which  try  to  twist  faith  out  of  moonshine  are  in 
part  responsible  for  the  prevalent  wrong  done  to  imagination, 
since  the  demands  they  make  upon  it  violate  reality  and  good 
sense. 

Manifestly,  the  preacher  who  cannot  realize  for  himself  the 
interplay  of  imaginative  forces  in  the  religious  education  of 
mankind  cannot  portray  them  to  others.  You  must  have  the 
ideals  which  imagination  conceives,  and  endeavor  so  to  adjust 
its  motions  that  they  shall  neither  warp  your  subject  nor  ob- 


296  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

scure  your  facts.  There  is  an  imminent  danger  for  those  who 
shrink  from  the  severe  mental  discipline  here  entailed.  The 
figurative  quality  of  their  language  plays  tricks  with  their 
reason.  Cherished  phrases  are  converted  into  a  philosophy, 
and  treated  as  though  they  were  actualities  instead  of  mere 
attempts  to  define  actualities.  Clergymen  who  chide  scien- 
tists for  this  mental  misdemeanor  are  not  always  free  from  it 
themselves.  They  talk  of  moral  systems  and  theological  cove- 
nants as  if  these  were  substantial  things  and  not  human  efforts 
to  describe  the  eternal  ethic  between  God  and  man.  Even 
logic,  as  some  one  has  well  said,  does  not  teach  us  how  we 
ought  to  think  but  how  we  do  think ;  its  office  being  like  that 
of  rhetoric,  descriptive ;  the  one  interprets  the  process  of  clear 
thinking,  the  other  that  of  clear  expression.  Imagination 
weaves  its  own  robes,  suiting  their  texture  and  sheen  to  the 
matter  in  hand  and  showing  that  concise  and  vigorous  re- 
fiection  can  usually  be  communicated  in  appropriate  and  im- 
pressive phrases. 

Take  care  that  the  temper  of  your  imagination  does  not  be- 
come excessively  somber  nor  yet  unduly  optimistic.  These 
dispositions  have  their  seasonable  qualities  and  occasionally 
serve  preaching,  but  they  do  not  light  the  fires  of  another  Pen- 
tecost in  the  heart  of  the  preacher.  The  melancholy  pulpi- 
teer takes  his  theology  from  Ecclesiastes  instead  of  the  Gos- 
pel. He  regards  the  life  that  now  is  as  vanity  and  rattles 
its  skeleton  before  every  congregation,  a  procedure  tantamount 
to  an  impeachment  of  the  government  of  Him  Who  is  the  pres- 
ent as  well  as  the  future  Ruler  of  the  universe.  His  op- 
posite is  the  exuberant  brother  who  seems  incapable  of  per- 
ceiving the  insolence  of  ill-founded  hopes.  There  is  no  solici- 
tude so  instructive  as  the  solicitude  for  others.  The  develop- 
ment of  your  pastoral  sympathies  which  are  in  many  ways 
akin  to  those  of  parentage  will  safeguard  you  from  these  ex- 
tremes and  enable  you  to  adjust  your  uses  of  imagination  to 
the  inherent  contradictions  present  in  human  situations.  Its 
merits  are  mainly  aggressive:  it  is  more  upon  the  offensive 
than  the  defensive.     It  releases  you  from  the  thrall  of  nar- 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  297 

row  realities  and  affords  you  the  richest  joys  of  your  voca- 
tion. Seek  it  therefore  in  all  else  you  seek;  in  general  cul- 
ture, in  contact  with  those  who  have  evinced  it  in  their  deeds 
and  writings,  and  in  the  devout  attitudes  of  the  soul  which 
keep  its  tideways  deepened  for  the  inflow  of  the  Eternal  Spirit. 
So  much  for  imagination  in  your  preparation  of  pulpit  dis- 
course, looking  with  eager  and  attentive  eyes  into  the  very 
heart  of  it  and  at  its  height  and  depth  and  the  horizons  melt- 
ing into  its  broad  expanse.  Turn  now  to  the  style  of  the 
sermon,  whether  spoken  or  written,  with  which  imagination  is 
so  intimately  associated.  It  is  impossible  to  discuss  here  all 
the  kinds  of  public  utterance;  they  are  as  diversified  as  the 
characters  of  men  and  women,  and  not  a  few  are  nondescript. 
You  have  the  style  orotund,  the  attenuated,  the  bland,  the  de- 
nunciatory, the  theatrical,  the  insipid,  the  inane,  the  ele- 
mentary and  many  others.  The  preacher  who  cannot  mention 
the  simplest  thing  without  euphemism  is  cheek-by- jowl  with 
the  one  who  cannot  speak  of  the  grace  of  God  without  the 
most  trite  and  banal  allusions.  Of  course  we  wish  to  possess 
the  style  that  reveals  us, 

"Dowered  with  the  hate  of  hate,  the  scorn  of  scorn, 
The  love  of  love," 

and  brings  before  our  audiences  whatever  deserves  their  wor- 
ship and  determines  their  conduct.  Perhaps  an  opening  can 
be  made  toward  the  ends  desired  by  reminding  you  that  the 
foundation  of  such  expression  is  sincerity,  and  that  this  vir- 
tue makes  style  a  part  of  the  man.  His  whole  nature  gives 
him  his  style,  and  nothing  else  will  give  it.  Preachers  who 
endeavor  to  say  more  than  they  know  or  to  simulate  what 
they  do  not  feel  tear  to  tatters  the  robes  of  reality.  It  may 
well  be  that  your  imagination  does  not  always  imply  in  you  the 
power  to  convey  in  commensurate  speech  what  you  have  in 
mind.  In  that  case  fall  back  upon  the  neglected  art  of  un- 
adorned statement,  and  you  will  discover  that  the  greatest 
truths  enter  the  soul's  audience  chamber  by  the  royal  way 
reserved  for  them.     The  conviction  that  their  inherent  gran- 


298  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

deur  is  behind  what  you  do  say  assures  effectiveness  and  im- 
parts an  impetus  which  ornate  declamation  cannot  impart. 
Never  attempt  to  describe  the  indescribable  nor  to  force 
your  gifts  into  false  positions  from  which  they  have  to 
retreat  discomfited.  Some  oratorical  preachers  leave  noth- 
ing for  the  Day  of  Judgment,  and  the  listener  who  com- 
plained that  a  lurid  long-drawn-out  word  picture  of  the  great 
fire  at  Chicago  was  worse  than  the  conflagration  itself  had 
justification  for  his  comment. 

Study  the  noblest  exemplars  of  eloquence,  who  generally 
held  in  reserve  forces  they  did  not  marshal,  which  were  for 
them  what  the  Old  Guard  was  for  Napoleon ;  they  impress  the 
reader  with  a  sense  of  further  authority  to  be  invoked  should 
the  necessity  arise.  John  Bright  towered  over  what  he  said 
as  do  the  hills  over  the  rivers  which  flow  from  their  slopes, 
and  never  spoke  beyond  his  strength.  However  arresting  his 
exordium,  convincing  his  argument,  unsparing  his  invective  or 
moving  his  exhortation,  the  entranced  audience  knew  that  be- 
hind the  almost  flawless  array  of  a  speech  ' '  terrible  as  an  army 
with  banners"  were  other  thoughts  and  phrases  not  yet 
called  into  action.  Avoid,  as  he  did,  superfluous  ornamen- 
tation which  deprives  preaching  of  color,  music,  strength  and 
movement  and  makes  it  trail  along  ridiculously  like  a  be- 
dizened woman  whose  dress  calls  attention  to  its  loss  of  come- 
liness by  reason  of  its  vulgar  ostentation.  Be  first  concerned 
with  what  you  have  to  say,  rather  than  with  your  manner  of 
saying  it. 

Another  principle  of  good  style  which  scarcely  needs  men- 
tion is  the  purity  of  the  language  it  employs.  Keep  a  good 
dictionary  at  your  elbow  and  allow  no  word  or  phrase 
to  find  a  place  in  your  compositions  that  does  not  fit  the  pur- 
pose nor  maintain  the  best  traditions  of  public  address.  I'hat 
matchless  instrument  which  famous  individuals  of  every  civ- 
ilized nation  have  praised  unsparingly,  undefiled  English,  was 
never  more  exposed  than  now  to  pollution  by  its  own  inheri- 
tors. Its  genius  has  nourished  our  race  and  other  races  in  law, 
literature,  art  and  religion ;  yet  vulgarisms  of  every  sort  and 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  299 

dialectical  jargons  of  numerous  circles  threaten  the  virginity 
of  the  mother  tongue.  It  is  your  obligation  to  preserve  in  the 
pulpit  the  form  of  sound  words.  There  is  no  emotion,  no  sen- 
timent, no  phase  of  thought  that  cannot  be  better  embodied  in 
correct  speech  than  in  terms  which  savor  of  the  appalling  in- 
tellectual poverty  or  of  the  cheap  and  shabby  cleverness 
which  are  the  progenitors  of  slang.  In  this  connection  I  quote 
from  Milton,  whom  Viscount  Morley  magnifies  as  the  greatest 
master  of  mighty  and  beautiful  speech :  *  *  Nor  is  it  to  be  con- 
sidered of  small  consequence  what  language,  pure  or  corrupt, 
a  people  has,  or  what  is  their  customary  degree  of  propriety 
in  speaking  it.  .  .  .  For,  let  the  words  of  a  country  be  in  part 
unhandsome  and  offensive  in  themselves,  in  part  debased  by 
wear  and  wrongly  uttered,  and  what  do  they  declare,  but,  by 
no  light  indication,  that  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  are  an 
indolent,  idlj^-yawning  race,  with  minds  already  long  prepared 
for  any  amount  of  servility?  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
never  heard  that  any  empire,  any  state,  did  not  at  least  flour- 
ish in  a  middling  degree  as  long  as  its  own  liking  and  care  for 
its  language  lasted."  ® 

Style  is  seldom  appropriate  unless  it  is  plain  and  unmis- 
takable. Few  preachers  can  bend  Ulysses'  bow  or  venture 
upon  the  refinements  and  discriminations  that  enhance  the 
pages  of  a  classic  author  but  would  only  embarrass  you  in  the 
spoken  word.  There  are  stylists  who  push  beyond  the  muddy 
waters  of  conventional  utterance  into  the  blue  or  golden  seas  of 
language,  where  they  have  fared  forth  confidently,  perfect 
mariners  all.  But  how  often  we  have  to  view  them  from  some 
lattice  opening  on  their  navigation  and  wonder  how  they  at- 
tained their  magical  qualities.  These  qualities  are,  as  a  rule, 
native  gifts  which  have  come  to  their  own  through  ceaseless 
training  and  repeated  effort.  Certainly  no  preacher  will  sail 
without  disaster  the  seas  which  a  few  elect  spirits  control  until 
he  has  learned  simplicity,  the  fundamental  element  of  good 
expression.     Style  must  also  appeal  to  the  senses  and  find  room 

8  Letter  to  Bonmattei,  quoted  by  Viscount  Morley:  Studies  in  Litera- 
ture, p.  224. 


300  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

for  those  images  of  loveliness  and  strength  which  follow  in 
the  train  of  the  sermon  as  it  cleaves  its  way  to  the  marrow 
of  the  theme. 

Further,  without  vibrant  passion  speech  is  dead.  Yet  pas- 
sion does  not,  as  some  suppose,  forbid  you  to  reason  nor  mili- 
tate against  patience,  equanimity,  or  the  fair  treatment  of  hos- 
tile opinions,  nor  is  it  to  be  confused  with  the  oracular  arro- 
gance that  excites  contempt,  nor  with  the  superfluous  epithets 
that  relieve  the  speaker  but  burden  the  hearer.  Quite  other- 
wise, the  passionate  preacher  often  compresses  into  one 
phrase  a  torrential  flow  of  thought  or  feeling,  and  rises  to  his 
climax  in  the  consciousness  that  he  has  previously  satisfied  the 
ethic  of  his  subject.  Thus  he  gives  additional  value  and  wider 
currency  to  his  views,  while  his  adherence  to  fact  and  argu- 
ment is  the  real  source  of  his  earnestness. 

The  worst  result  of  a  bad  style  is  that  it  does  injustice  to 
truth,  reminding  one  of  a  miscreant  who  hacks  in  pieces  a 
prime  work  of  art.  Avoid  the  malpractice  of  artificial  types 
of  utterance,  which  have  been  satirized  as  toilettes  performed 
from  folly  or  vanity  suggestive  of  the  stiffness  of  Mrs.  Jarley  's 
wax-work  figures.  A  near  relative  of  the  artificial  is  the  imi- 
tative style,  which  generally  ends  in  reproducing  the  faults 
rather  than  the  excellences  of  its  model.  Dr.  Holmes  sadly 
observed  that  one  who  talked  like  Emerson  or  Carlyle  soon 
found  himself  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  walking  phonographs, 
who  mechanically  reechoed  his  mental  and  oral  accents.  There 
has  been  hardly  a  preacher  of  renown  who  was  not  encircled 
by  a  crowd  of  adulatory  brethren,  waiting  not  only  for  his 
word  but  for  his  gestures,  or  even  for  his  least  admirable  pe- 
culiarities. To  copy  these  was  their  obsession,  but  what  in- 
formed auditors  thought  about  the  belittling  process  is  alto- 
gether another  matter.  Imitation  reduces  selfhood  and  steril- 
izes originality.  No  preacher  will  reach  his  natural  dimen- 
sions who  is  a  parasite  slavishly  fastened  upon  his  paragon. 
For  this  reason  throw  off  any  human  influence  that  may  have 
become  monopolistic,  and  while  you  learn  of  gifted  men  re- 
main severely  yourself,  expressing  that  self  in  the  sermon. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  301 

The  imitative  style  is  seldom  without  its  ridiculous  side,  and 
so  humor  helps  to  ameliorate  the  mischief,  but  in  every  case 
the  preacher  is  mulcted. 

The  prolix  style  frequently  arises  from  what  seems  to  be 
an  incurable  loquacity,  sometimes  from  sheer  mental  laziness. 
Its  remedy  consists  in  writing  what  you  propose  to  say  and 
then  striking  out  with  relentless  hand  everything  which  is  not 
pertinent.  By  this  method  a  sermon  that  might  have  taken 
an  hour  to  deliver  can  be  better  presented  in  twenty  minutes. 
Its  meaning  will  stand  out  the  more  clearly  when  the  cumber- 
some robes  of  rhetoric  have  been  removed.  Platitudes  are 
not  transformed  into  profundities  by  a  multitude  of  words, 
and  conciseness  is  always  a  virtue  of  speech.  Nevertheless, 
the  preacher  should  not  become  so  finical  in  this  respect  as  to 
leave  gaps  in  his  discourse  or  incoherencies  in  its  arrange- 
ment. It  is  often  better  to  hint  than  to  elaborate,  to  sug- 
gest rather  than  to  amplify,  but  there  are  sacred  themes  in 
which  enlargement  and  repetition  are  not  only  permissible 
but  necessary. 

Do  not  shrink  from  mingling  the  sublimity  of  your  themes 
with  familiar  allusions  and  references,  for  the  homely  and  the 
concrete  relieve  the  heroic  strain  of  the  sermon.  A  resource- 
ful preacher  descends  without  hazard  from  the  most  exalted  to 
the  humblest  scenes  of  life.  He  blends  heaven  with  earth,  and 
uses  the  holiest  truths  to  inculcate  the  lowliest  duties;  seem- 
ingly trivial  metaphors  unveil  a  world  of  significance  to  him. 
Bunyan  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  example,  outside  the 
Bible,  of  this  versatility.  He  abounds  in  body  without  infla- 
tion, and  his  simple  luminous  sentences  are  models  that  can- 
not be  improved  upon.  Although  he  had  received  no  sort  of 
academic  training,  his  equal  in  clarity,  brevity,  felicity  and 
wealth  of  expression  would  be  hard  to  find.  He  contrived  to 
attain  a  literary  technique  such  as  few  men  in  any  age  have 
had.  His  unerring  instinct  for  dramatic  situations  and  tell- 
ing phrases,  combined  with  the  splendor  of  his  imagination, 
kept  him  altogether  free  from  the  heaviness  and  tumidity 
which  mar  so  much  devotional  literature.    Everything  in  his 


302  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

writings  is  warm,  living,  terse,  ever  and  anon  intense,  yet 
never  beyond  the  strict  economy  of  emotion  for  practical  aims. 
This  Puritan  peasant  of  the  shires  devoted  an  imperial  in- 
tellect to  evangelical  themes  and  dreamt  them  into  a  realm  of 
power  no  other  author  of  his  time,  except  Milton,  approached. 
The  pompous  magnificence  of  the  able  and  learned  divines  of 
Bunyan's  day  is  unendurable  when  compared  with  his  vital 
prose.  Although  he  set  down  nothing  which  could  not  be  rel- 
ished by  the  rustics  of  his  native  heath,  what  he  wrote  and  said 
still  lingers  in  the  spiritual  imagination  of  English-speaking 
Protestants  throughout  the  world.  Does  any  author  accessible 
to  you  know  as  this  converted  tinker  knew  what  a  human 
being  can  bear  of  temptation  or  achieve  of  virtue  in  the  never- 
ending  pressure  of  the  life  around  him  ?  what  powers  of  resist- 
ance are  in  his  soul?  how  long  the  religious  energies  he  has 
accumulated  will  continue  to  spurn  the  seductions  of  evil  and 
respond  to  the  overtures  of  goodness?  If  not,  ponder  again 
and  again  the  characteristics  of  the  allegorist  who  showed  his 
genius  in  such  numerous  ways,  but  in  none  more  consum- 
mately than  in  that  discipline  of  omission  which  kept  a  trop- 
ical imagination  submissive  to  a  stern  theology. 

The  young  preacher  can  second  his  study  of  Bunyan  by 
that  of  Lincoln,  who  was  very  much  in  statesmanship  what 
Bunyan  was  in  religion,  the  prophet  dwelling  in  an  Inter- 
preter 's  House  which  humanity  at  large  has  been  glad  to  visit. 
No  man  of  the  nineteenth  century  could  state  a  proposition 
with  more  clearness  and  compactness  or  build  up  an  irrefut- 
able argument  with  more  consistency  than  could  the  victor- 
victim  of  modem  democracy.  His  apt  comparisons,  inimitable 
wit,  fundamental  reasoning,  logical  precision,  benevolence  of 
spirit  and  ethical  supremacy  were  beyond  the  remarkable — 
they  were  phenomenal.  His  principal  books  were  the  Holy 
Scriptures  and  Shakespeare;  they  gave  him  a  culture  unsur- 
passed by  that  of  the  classics  and  verified  the  assertion  of 
Huxley  that  an  English-speaking  man  who  cannot  get  his 
literary  style  out  of  the  sources  to  which  Lincoln  resorted  is 
not  likely  to  obtain  it  from  Homer  and  Sophocles. 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  303 

I  am  sure  that  you  desire  to  cultivate  a  good  style  and  are 
prepared  to  adopt  the  means  required  for  so  necessary  an 
acquisition.  This  desire,  however,  occasionally  lures  the  be- 
ginner from  naturalness  of  expression  into  turgid  and  re- 
dundant phrases  which  defeat  his  aim.  He  does  not  look  at 
things  exactly  with  his  own  eyes  and  fails  to  harmonize  the 
eloquent  voices  to  which  he  has  listened  too  eagerly  for  his  own 
self-control.  Guard  against  this  tendency  by  selecting  high 
and  noble  themes  which  involve  the  profoundest  feelings  and 
the  widest  interests  of  humanity,  and  remember  that  the  rhet- 
oric you  use  should  be  dictated  by  principles,  not  by  men. 
Such  themes  will  either  find  a  way  or  make  one,  and  their  ex- 
alted nature  often  imparts  itself  to  their  expression.  But 
that  this  may  be  worthy  and  adequate,  note  every  happy  dis- 
tinction or  conspicuous  sentence  you  meet  in  your  reading  of 
the  best  works.  These  add  pregnancy,  suggestiveness  and  ca- 
dence to  your  utterance  and  give  you  not  only  the  command 
of  words  but  the  command  of  right  words.  One  is  somewhat 
averse  to  a  manufactured  style;  yet  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
confessed  that  he  had  played  the  "sedulous  ape"  to  Hazlitt, 
Lamb,  Wordsworth,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Defoe  and  a  dozen 
other  authorities  of  equal  rank,  and  insisted  that  "like  it  or 
not,  this  is  the  way  to  write."  I  cannot  entirely  endorse 
Stevenson's  method,  but  the  preacher  does  gain  sway  over 
his  audience  if  his  mode  of  speech  has  been  chastened  by  his 
acquaintance  with  the  masters  of  expression.  It  is  his  to  see 
that  doctrine  transforms  life,  that  theology  becomes  a  construc- 
tive force  in  character,  that  conscience  does  not  slumber  in  the 
embrace  of  error ;  and  in  the  great  enterprise  every  ally  that 
enables  him  to  reach  the  end  of  the  sermon  with  a  surplus 
of  power  should  be  gratefully  welcomed.  The  last  remark 
brings  us  to  catholicity  of  taste.  The  friends  of  the  golden 
tongue  are  very  many,  and  it  is  not  wise  to  turn  your  back  on 
any  one  of  them.  You  will  be  assured  that  this  particular 
style  or  the  other  has  expired  or  is  out  of  date  or  is  offensive. 
One  expert  declaims  against  "Johnsonese";  another  favors  an 
exaggerated  simplicity,  which  in  fact  is  not  so  simple  as  it  is 


304  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

studied  and  strained.  The  art  of  ruling  the  minds  of  men 
and  women  through  public  speech  is  too  arduous  and  insistent 
to  permit  you  to  discard  any  style  that  is  legitimate.  Monot- 
ony and  conventionality  are  your  dread  foes :  keep  them  at  bay 
by  the  variety  and  freshness  of  your  address.  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  the  last  survivor  of  the  band  of  statesmen  who  employed 
the  grand  manner,  adapted  to  a  critical  audience  and  embel- 
lished by  quotations  from  the  classics.  His  successors  have 
discredited  that  manner,  though  they  have  scarcely  improved 
upon  the  lead  that  Gladstone  gave  to  representative  democ- 
racy. This  is  the  hey-day  of  the  conversational  style.  Sub- 
lime words  and  sonorous  antitheses  are  no  longer  honored 
guests  but  intruders.  Nevertheless,  the  conversational  method 
is  not  the  all  of  pulpit  presentation,  which  is  summoned  to  the 
description  of  supernal  realities.  There  are  climaxes  in  the 
Evangel  of  God  which  require  not  a  thin  meager  piping  but  a 
balanced,  symphonic  outflow  of  chosen  language.  Lord  Ches- 
terfield's description  of  the  English  Pericles,  the  elder  Pitt, 
bears  on  this  point :  "His  eloquence  was  of  every  kind,  and  he 
excelled  in  the  argumentative  as  in  the  declamatory  style." 
Provided  you  sustain  what  you  say  and  keep  it  moving  toward 
its  goal  by  the  pervasive  strength  of  your  personality,  you 
need  not  be  afraid  of  any  form  of  utterance,  which  is  aglow 
with  feeling  and  informed  by  reason.  Styles  of  preaching 
should  be  mobilized  in  Beecher's  way;  he  never  hesitated  to 
combine  half  a  dozen  in  a  single  discourse,  and  thus  kept 
his  hearers  expectant  and  receptive. 

I  assume  that  you  will  write  what  you  afterwards  preach, 
especially  during  your  earlier  period.  Quintilian,  Cicero  and 
the  younger  Pliny  translated  by  way  of  improving  their  style ; 
so  did  V^oltaire,  Dryden,  Chapman  and  D  'Alembert.  Wilhelm 
Schlegel  revolutionized  the  German  drama  when  in  1797  he 
handed  his  translation  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  to  the  director  of 
the  Royal  Theater  in  Berlin.  Translations  of  the  Bible  have 
rejuvenated  the  languages  in  which  they  were  made.  If  you 
should  put  your  knowledge  of  the  sacred  languages  to  sim- 
ilar use  it  would  be  highly  beneficial.    In  any  case  habitual 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  305 

writing  saves  you  from  the  mistiness  whicli  mothers  bewilder- 
ment and  accentuates  the  difference  between  the  written  and 
the  spoken  word.  Test  this  by  penning  a  series  of  proposi- 
tions which  have  strict  sequence  and  hold  it  in  terms  that  do 
not  overlap.  The  method  may  seem  easy  to  a  novice,  but  to 
one  who  has  repeatedly  to  write  and  correct  sermons  or 
articles  the  discipline  is  as  obvious  as  are  its  advantages. 
Further,  it  proves  that  selection  is  the  essence  of  preparation. 
Trying  to  get  everything  into  the  picture  crowds  out  the  im- 
pression desired;  in  oratory,  as  in  art,  the  master  is  revealed 
by  his  omissions.  That  is  the  best  style  for  you  which  estab- 
lishes and  maintains  immediate  connection  between  yourself 
and  the  audience.  Even  a  trace  of  humor  here  and  there  is 
not  to  be  scouted,  although  it  should  be  introduced  very  spar- 
ingly and  only  after  an  extended  experience  in  preaching. 

Demosthenes  rightly  regarded  delivery  as  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance, and  modern  orators  who  know  their  business  lay 
equal  emphasis  upon  it.  The  prepared  discourse  may  be  lik- 
ened to  an  orchestral  score ;  its  adequate  delivery  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  that  score  by  skilled  musicians.  How  many 
splendid  overtures  have  been  marred  by  incompetent  orches- 
tras !  how  many  noble  sermons  have  been  ruined  by  a  wretched 
delivery !  The  curate's  simper,  the  ecclesiastic's  monotone,  the 
parson's  whining  affectations  have  been  the  butt  of  every  stage 
jester  and  of  the  censors  of  our  calling.  Such  portrayals  are 
often  unjust,  but  they  originate  in  the  regrettable  fact  that 
good  speaking  is  all  too  rare  in  the  pulpit.  Not  a  few  gifted 
and  godly  men  have  been  confined  all  their  days  to  a  re- 
stricted ministry  solely  because  they  did  not  know  how  to 
comport  themselves  in  matters  relative  to  voice,  demeanor, 
gesture  and  general  bearing.  Hence  they  have  stood  still 
while  brethren  of  lesser  parts  have  ascended  to  wider  circles 
of  influence.  Whitefield  was  altogether  inferior  to  John  Fos- 
ter in  intellect  and  culture,  but  Whitefield  attained  dominion 
over  two  continents  while  Foster  scattered  diamonds  of 
thought  over  half-empty  pews.  Whitefield  was  opulent  in  the 
ways  and  means  of  popular  expression;  Foster  had  little  to 


306  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

draw  with,  and  the  well  was  deep.  The  best  homily  ever 
written  remains  a  thing  unborn  until  it  is  preached,  and  a 
bad  delivery  mutilates  it  in  the  process  of  birth.  People  can- 
not be  persuaded  to  attend  upon  the  massacre  of  the  innocents 
every  Lord's  Day.  A  crowded  church  may  not  be  a  testi- 
mony of  a  soul-searching  minister,  but  an  empty  church  is  an 
indubitable  sign  of  some  weakness  in  the  pulpit. 

I  need  not  repeat  what  has  already  been  said  about  the 
personality  of  the  preacher,  but  you  can  be  certain  that  it  ie 
the  fountain  of  his  delivery,  and  in  the  long  run  tells  rather 
than  the  sermon.  "When  Thomas  Binney  appeared  in  the 
pulpit  he  looked  and  acted  like  a  god.  Archbishop  Temple 
gave  the  Apostolic  benediction  to  a  congregation  as  though  he 
were  blessing  a  nation.  Hugh  Rose  read  the  Ten  Command- 
ments in  a  rural  church  on  a  rainy  day  with  such  dignity 
of  articulation  that  a  critical  listener  said  Rose  seemed  to  have 
received  them  that  morning  from  Sinai  itself.  They  left  his 
lips  stamped  with  his  individuality,  and  everything  requisite 
for  their  deliverance  was  harmoniously  employed.  When  you 
have  learned  his  secret  you  have  overcome  the  initial  difficulty 
of  preaching.  The  pulpit  formerly  possessed  a  large  propor- 
tion of  divines  who  had  not  onlj^  much  that  was  worth  saying, 
but  could  say  it  in  a  worthy  manner,  so  that  the  people  were 
compelled  to  heed  and  believe  their  message.  To-day  we  turn 
out  educated  theologians  and  scholars  versed  in  varied  learn- 
ing, but  do  they  have  the  resources  of  the  pulpit  speaker 
or  are  they  as  helpless  in  presence  of  a  congregation  as  a 
historian  in  presence  of  an  invading  army?  "When  Matthew 
Arnold  lectured  in  Chicago,  some  daring  reporter  described 
him  as  resembling  an  elderly  bird  perched  on  a  trellis  and 
pecking  at  a  grape  vine,  and  General  Grant  remarked  to  his 
wife  that  he  had  seen  but  could  not  hear  the  distinguished 
visitor.  It  should  be  added  that  Arnold  was  sensible  enough 
to  consult  an  elocutionist,  and  to  such  good  purpose  that  before 
he  left  the  United  States  he  spoke  audibly  and  well.  You  will 
be  made  aware  of  your  defects  in  delivery  by  practice.  And 
if  you  have  to  repair  them  by  the  aid  of  an  elocutionist,  see 


PREPARATION  AND  PRACTICE  307 

to  it  that  he  does  not  leave  you  with  other  defects  almost  as 
objectionable  as  those  of  which  he  rids  you.  It  does  not 
become  me  to  lay  down  rules  for  your  observance.  These  you 
will  doubtless  receive  from  the  more  competent  guidance  of 
your  professors.  My  one  aim  is  to  emphasize  the  necessity  of 
a  good  delivery,  for  lack  of  which  the  wealth  of  many  a  preach- 
er's  mind  runs  to  waste  or  reacts  within  him  as  a  pent-up 
Utica,  conscious  of  a  prophet's  heart  and  also  of  a  prophet's 
disappointment.  A  solemn  obligation  is  laid  upon  you,  from 
which  none  has  dispensation,  to  proclaim  as  well  as  know  the 
Gospel,  and  he  who  falters  here  when  he  might  have  succeeded 
is  answerable  for  his  dereliction.  All  that  has  been  said  can 
be  summarized  in  another  quotation  from  Milton,  more  applic- 
able to  the  preacher  than  even  to  the  poet.  "I  was  confirmed 
in  this  opinion,  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrated  of  his 
hope  to  write  well  hereafter  in  laudable  things  ought  himself 
to  be  a  true  poem  .  .  .  not  presuming  to  sing  high  praises  of 
heroic  men  or  famous  cities,  unless  he  have  in  himself  the 
experience  and  practice  of  all  that  is  praiseworthy. ' ' " 

The  importance  of  your  bodily  equipment  is  not  exactly  ger- 
mane here ;  and,  indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  there  is  much  use 
in  talking  upon  the  subject  to  young  men  who  are,  as  a  rule, 
already  inclined  toward  athletics.  Besides,  we  never  quite 
believe  that  the  requirements  of  Nature  are  inexorable,  till  she 
exacts  the  penalty  due  to  their  neglect.  The  laws  of  hy- 
gienics are  no  longer  violated  because  of  ignorance,  and  if 
after  you  are  forty  you  have  to  live  under  a  lowering  sky  of 
ill  health  and  do  your  work  with  a  rebellious  pulse  or  reluctant 
breathing,  probably  you  will  have  no  one  to  blame  but  your- 
selves. I  prefer  to  believe  that  you  will  add  a  vigilant  super- 
vision to  what  Nature  has  already  done  for  you  in  respect  to 
physical  fitness.  A  passing  reference  to  some  other  external 
matters  which  are,  strictly  speaking,  within  the  provinces  of 
the  elocutionist  and  the  rhetorician  is  more  seasonable.  Not 
every  minister  rejoices  in  a  full  and  pleasing  voice,  with  mus- 
ical range  and  inflection.     If  you  are  fortunate  enough  to 

10  Quoted  by  Marcus  Dods :  Erasmus  and  Other  Essays,  p^  320. 


308  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

own  such  an  instrument,  carefully  preserve  it;  if  it  is  not 
yours,  cultivate  what  voice  you  have,  but  subordinate  vocal 
acquirements  to  that  which  you  have  to  say,  or  you  may  be 
under  the  soft  impeachment  of  making  tone  and  accent  do 
duty  for  thought.  I  recall  a  few  divines  who  talked  with  the 
stately  resonance  of  an  empty  cistern,  and  uttered  common- 
places with  a  majestic  note.  Mobile  features,  lively  and  ex- 
pressive in  their  play,  radiating  the  effulgence  of  true  emo- 
tion; easy  and  natural  gestures;  and  an  erect  and  graceful 
bearing  add  much  to  the  effect  of  fitly  chosen  words.  Covet 
these  accessories,  though  they  are  not  so  essential  as  some 
would  have  you  believe.  In  conclusion,  when  your  gift  of  ut- 
terance, be  it  ordinary  or  unusual,  is  supported  by  prolonged 
meditation,  lucid  thinking,  orderly  arrangement;  guarded 
by  an  instinctive  sense  of  fitness,  and  animated  by  an  intense 
desire  that  sacred  truth  shall  prevail,  the  results  will  be  com- 
mensurately  effective.  These  qualities  are  not  only  primal  in- 
centives of  the  sermon  but  of  every  form  of  ethical  discourse, 
and  have  an  indisputable  ascendancy  in  art,  letters,  politics, 
and  throughout  the  moral  realm.  There  is  a  threefold  elo- 
quence bound  up  in  your  vocation ;  the  eloquence  of  words,  of 
deeds  and  of  imperishable  principles,  the  last  two  being  incom- 
parably the  most  convincing.  You  may  find  yourself  at  the 
first  deficient  in  readiness  of  speech,  in  rhythmic  phrase  and 
haunting  allusion.  But  the  difficulties  this  lack  creates  can 
be  largely  overcome  by  educative  methods,  and  in  the  mean- 
time you  can  admirably  second  what  you  have  to  say  by  the 
life  that  embodies  your  vows  to  the  truth  as  you  understand  it. 


CHAPTER  IX 
PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP 


"I  saw  the  Lord  sitting  upon  a  throne,  high  and  lifted  up;  and 
his  train  filled  the  temple.  Above  him  stood  the  seraphim:  each 
one  had  six  wings;  with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain 
he  covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain  he  did  fly.  And  one  cried  unto 
another,  and  said.  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  Jehovah  of  hosts:  the  whole 
earth  is  full  of  his  glory." 

Isaiah  vi :  1-3. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PREACHING   AND   WORSHIP 

The  place  of  worship — The  Eucharist  in  worship — Worship  as  revela- 
tory— The  Mediator  of  worship — Unifying  power  of  worship — 
False  substitutes — Inadequate  rituals — Three  memorable  serv- 
ices— Pastoral  prayer — Praise  in  worship — Order  of  service — 
Need  of  reform  in  worship — Reading  the  lessons — The  worship- 
ing Church. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  Church  is  on  the  eve  of  a  spir- 
itual upheaval  in  which  her  restorative  epochs  may  repeat 
themselves  by  means  of  a  fresh  discovery  of  God's  saving 
strength.  But  she  will  first  have  to  become  in  a  greatly  inten- 
sified degree  the  worshiping  as  well  as  the  witnessing  Church, 
and  wait  until  she  is  endued  anew  with  power.  The  sympa- 
thetic conditions  which  a  religious  revival  presupposes,  in 
which  it  originates,  by  which  its  results  are  conserved,  are  cre- 
ated by  the  devotional  breathings  of  God's  saints.  All  suc- 
cessful propaganda  is  preceded  by  the  divine  and  human  fel- 
lowship in  which  the  compassionate  infinitudes  of  the  Gospel 
are  reconceived  in  order  that  they  may  be  recommunicated. 
As  men  of  Puritan  lineage  you  have  heard  much  of  the  lofty 
spirits  who  were  solitary  in  their  intercourse  with  Heaven. 
But  the  promise  of  the  Risen  Lord  that  He  would  be  in  the 
midst  of  His  people  was  made  not  to  the  individual  but  to 
the  twos  and  threes.  However  serviceable  the  watchman  may 
be  who  keeps  his  solitary  vigil,  his  usefulness  will  be  definitely 
curtailed  if  he  should  become  the  recluse  who  has  every  virtue 
except  that  of  association.  Good  men  for  whom  every  out- 
ward union  provokes  inward  dissent,  who  cannot  fall  into  line 
with  their  brethren  on  any  occasion,  who  covet  seclusion  and 
speak  slightingly  of  those  who  obey  the  social  impulse,  may 

311 


312  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

find  a  circumscribed  paradise  in  their  habitual  reserve,  but 
their  merits  are  largely  lost  upon  their  contemporaries.  For 
our  generation  feels  as  no  generation  has  felt  since  the  Middle 
Ages  the  exhilaration  of  communal  fellowship.  Your  future 
parishioners  will  work  and  play  as  they  warred,  in  large 
groups,  and  when  they  do  worship  it  will  be  in  similar  align- 
ments. One  does  not  have  to  admit  that  esprit  de  corps  is  an 
unmitigated  advantage,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  it  counts 
for  a  great  deal  in  labor,  capital,  trade,  politics  and  the  spir- 
itual activities  of  the  nations.  More  than  ever  people  think 
and  act  in  corporate  ways,  and  it  is  the  problem  of  the  Church 
as  the  living  bridge  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen  to  arouse 
in  them  those  larger,  nobler  ideals  of  worship  which  center 
the  social  imagination  upon  eternal  realities.  This  was  done 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  effect  of  such  ideals  was  pro- 
found and  formative,  dissipating  the  widespread  gloom  and 
relieving  the  acute  destitution  then  prevalent.  Poets  and  ar- 
tists depicted  the  enraptured  hosts  upon  the  hills  of  light  as 
well  as  the  horror-stricken  hordes  in  the  abysses  of  perdition. 
A  recent  writer  has  referred  to  the  individual  of  those  days 
who,  subjected  to  cruelty  and  violence,  lived  hazardously  and 
coarsely  upon  earth  and  shrank  before  the  final  ordeal  of 
death,  which  he  must  face  alone.  But  the  symbolism  and 
teaching  of  the  Church  assured  him  that  he  would  be  finally 
admitted  to  a  seraphic  concourse  and  an  ecstasy  of  joy.  No 
matter  how  God  might  order  his  existence  after  death  his  spirit 
would  surely  be  filled  with  sweet  peace  and  love  of  the  Divine 
Will.  Gothic  architecture,  ornate  ceremonialism,  direct  access 
through  a  priesthood  to  the  loved  ones  who  had  preceded  him 
into  the  Beyond,  were  purposely  employed  to  ensphere  the 
eternal  in  the  temporal,  to  make  it  real,  vivid  and  dominant. 
We  do  not  have  to  go  so  far  back  as  mediaevalism  for  these 
ostensible  benefits.  Earlier  Methodism  also  aroused  in  its 
converts  a  joyous  anticipation  of  the  soul's  enfranchisement 
through  bodily  dissolution,  and  many  of  its  marvels  among  the 
moral  outcasts  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  were 
wrought  by  its  worship,  chiefly  as  expressed  in  the  hymns  of 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  313 

Charles  Wesley.  This  psalmist  of  the  Church  Universal  ex- 
celled in  the  portrayal  of  the  personal  experience  of  believers, 
and  was  seldom  more  inspired  than  when  he  sang  of  the  bliss 
of  the  saints  who  rest  from  their  labors.  The  lessons  derived 
from  these  historic  instances,  which  could  be  indefinitely  mul- 
tiplied, teach  us  that,  until  Christianity  ceases  to  define  the 
entire  realm  of  eternal  values  in  which  the  soul  realizes  its  life 
in  God  and  its  relations  to  the  redeemed  Societies  of  Heaven 
and  of  earth,  it  will  never  fail  to  stress  the  fellowship  created 
by  worship. 

In  that  fellowship  is  the  union  of  private  and  public  re- 
ligious observances  for  the  edification  of  the  Church  and  the 
salvation  of  the  world.  The  general  work  of  the  Gospel,  in  the 
preparation  of  the  soil  of  the  heart  for  the  sowing  of  the  seed 
of  divine  truth  and  the  production  of  the  fruits  of  truth  in 
godly  living,  depends  upon  the  pure  and  sincere  worship 
which  is  the  loftiest  employment  of  human  spirits.  To  bless 
the  ineffable  Name  of  their  Maker  and  Lover,  to  confess  their 
sins  and  implore  His  mercy,  are  primal  duties  and  privileges 
which  constitute  the  holiest  functions  of  the  Church.  The 
greatness  of  her  worship  largely  determines  the  strength  of  her 
ministerial  position  and  materially  aids  the  extent  of  her  in- 
fluence upon  the  religious  conduct  of  mankind.  If  those  to 
whom  you  proclaim  your  message  were  a  perfect  organ  for  its 
transmission,  possibly  worship  and  preaching  might  be  re- 
garded separately,  but  this  is  seldom  the  case.  The  average 
congregation  represents  both  diversity  and  oneness,  and  the 
oneness  is  more  likely  to  be  perfected  not  by  what  you  say  but 
by  what  all  alike  adore.  Some  men  and  women  are  over-rid- 
den by  temperamental  differences;  others  are  disinclined  to- 
ward the  mysteries  of  the  Faith ;  a  third  class  looks  upon  spir- 
itual thoughts  as  the  shadows  cast  by  feeling;  and  here  and 
there  the  supercilious  or  the  skeptical  are  unaware  that  the 
soul's  intuitions  are  often  wiser  than  its  earthly  knowledge. 
The  reconciliation  of  these  differences  is  not  solely  in  your 
utterances,  as  too  many  preachers  suppose.  For  it  is  far 
easier  to  energize  the  varieties  of  the  human  mind  through  ar- 


314  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

gument  and  eloquence  than  it  is  to  merge  them  in  adoration 
of  the  Eternal  Father.  Worship  begins  with  the  consecrated 
few  who  have  previously  ordered  themselves  aright  before  the 
Eternal  Presence,  and  they  await  your  coming  to  the  pulpit 
with  an  eager  expectation  which  supports  your  message.  But 
every  divisive  element  has  to  be  eliminated,  and  the  audience 
blended  in  one  heart  and  mind  striving  together  for  the  faith 
of  the  Gospel.  This  is  a  supernal  task,  and  for  its  fulfilment 
ministers  should  seek  the  help  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  Who  gov- 
erns all  devout  devices  and  desires,  prayers  and  meditations 
for  His  own  acceptance.  Under  His  guidance  neither  in- 
ferior motives  nor  the  artificial  distinctions  to  which  they  give 
rise  can  mar  the  beauty  of  holiness  that  should  adorn  every 
aspiration  and  act  of  the  worshiping  Church. 

The  summit  of  worship  is  reached  in  the  Sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  in  which  Christ  Himself  invites  His  disciples 
to  partake  of  the  visible  symbols  of  His  redeeming  love  and  to 
rest  in  His  providential  care.  In  spite  of  appearances  to  the 
contrary,  there  is  a  widespread  heart-hunger  for  fellowship 
with  the  Divine  Redeemer  and  with  the  brotherhood  through 
the  Eucharist.  Many  who  might  well  be  supposed  to  have  suf- 
ficient religious  resources  within  themselves,  and  still  more 
who  seem  to  be  far  removed  from  other  presentations  of  the 
Gospel,  are  drawn  to  the  Holy  Table  and  find  there  the  bless- 
ings conferred  upon  a  passive  and  recipient  trust.  Churches 
which  elevate  the  devotion  that  centers  in  the  Lord's  Supper 
have  less  reason  to  complain  of  public  indifference  than  those 
which  rely  too  exclusively  upon  the  attraction  of  the  pulpit. 
Twenty  years  since,  the  flock  I  am  permitted  to  pastor  entered 
upon  a  fresh  realization  of  this  fact.  Without  the  too  fre- 
quent celebrations  which  tend  to  breed  an  undue  familiarity 
inimical  to  the  healthiest  traditions  of  the  rite ;  in  the  restraint 
yet  also  the  freedom  of  our  Protestant  faith,  we  have  en- 
deavored to  make  the  bi-monthly  Communion  Service  the  cul- 
mination of  our  devotion.  It  has  become  the  most  influential 
means  of  grace  we  enjoy,  and  its  observance  on  Good  Friday 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  315 

is  the  surpassing  event  of  our  organization  as  a  part  of  the 
priesthood  in  the  Body  of  which  Christ  is  the  Head.^ 

Further,  Christian  worship  is  a  revelatory  medium  to  which 
reason  testifies.  It  may  be  questioned  in  this  connection 
whether  the  gift  of  prophecy  is  more  frequently  imparted  to 
divines  who  have  drained  the  lees  of  the  wine  of  learning  than 
to  the  simpler,  spiritualized  preachers  who  are  even  more 
mighty  in  prayer  than  in  sermonic  utterance.  Savonarola  was 
not  distinguished  for  a  highly  cultivated  intellect,  but  what 
education  he  had  did  not  blunt  his  finer  perceptive  faculties. 
There  are  ambassadors  who,  like  him,  echo  in  their  devotional 
speech  the  accents  of  the  Eternal  Voice;  whose  ministrations 
unveil  the  mysteries  of  the  Unseen.  It  is  also  indisputable 
that  worship  has  been  the  animating  life  of  man 's  artistic  pur- 
suits and  moral  gains,  nor  could  it  have  kept  its  priority  in 
every  age  and  among  all  races  had  it  not  been  man's  most 
rational  service.  Where  its  purer  forms  prevailed  civiliza- 
tion attained  its  height.  Christian  Rome,  the  Europe  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  Puritan  England  and  Colo- 
nial New  England,  stamped  their  impress  upon  the  fabric  of 
surrounding  States  because  worshiping  men  and  women  made 
a  lasting  consecration  of  human  life  to  its  Creator,  One  can 
trace  beneath  the  oppression  of  erroneous  systems  the  ceaseless 
quest  of  men  for  the  true  and  living  God.  Their  waste  and 
folly,  their  superstitious  wanderings,  their  erection  of  altars 
in  forbidden  shrines,  their  kindling  of  strange  fires,  could  not 
prevent  that  quest.  Its  secret  restlessness  was  instilled  not 
only  by  reason  but  by  the  highest  reason.  Gibbon  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  destruction  of  the  Persian  monarchy  by  the  Sar- 
acens relates  that  among  the  standards  captured  at  the  battle 
of  Cadesia  was  the  leathern  apron  of  a  blacksmith  who  had 
once  led  the  armies  of  his  country  in  war.  This  primitive 
ensign  was  so  encrusted  with  votive  offerings  as  to  be  hidden 
beneath  them.  In  like  manner  the  original  ideals  of  wor- 
ship have  been  overlaid  by  traditions  which  conceal  their 

^  Cf.  Chapter  IV  for  a  fuller  reference  to  the  Sacraments. 


316  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

former  psychological  importance.  These  we  properly  repudi- 
ate, but  in  doing  so  let  us  see  to  it  that  our  barer  rituals  find 
sufficient  scope  for  the  spirit  of  worship. 

The  truth  Christ  made  known  is  continuously  realized 
afresh  in  worship,  which  releases  and  illuminates  the  mind  for 
the  conquests  of  Christian  thought.  Believing  not  only  that 
God  is,  but  that  He  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently 
seek  Him,  the  Church  and,  in  its  crucial  hours,  the  world  have 
a  sufficient  motive  for  approach  to  Him.  How  often  we  speak 
of  existence  in  terms  of  certitude ;  it,  at  least,  we  say,  is  real ; 
yet  it  is  neither  more  real  nor  more  persistent  than  is  the  life 
of  prayer.  Live  constantly  in  that  life,  as  Jesus  commanded, 
and  your  intellectual  nature  will  be  upraised  and  revivified. 
The  servants  of  God  who  have  met  the  actual  needs  of  their 
age  have  dwelt  with  God.  Worship  enabled  them  to  dream 
the  humanly  impossible,  while  from  the  insight  and  resolution 
their  dreams  afforded  they  established  righteousness  and  built 
the  avenues  in  which  redemption  makes  progress.  The  con- 
tributions made  by  Christian  worship  to  theology,  philosophy, 
discourse,  art,  music  and  poetry  demonstrate  its  essential  rea- 
sonableness, and  so  far  from  requiring  defense  are  to  be  lauded 
as  evidences  of  what  the  human  mind  can  accomplish  when 
expanded  and  sublimated  by  the  Divine  Mind. 

Worship  also  reveals  religious  realities  beyond  the  reach  of 
unaided  reason.  There  is  no  purely  intellectual  solution  for 
numerous  difficulties  that  trouble  thought  and  life.  In  the 
treatment  of  these  difficulties  the  learning  of  the  sage  is  im- 
potent until  it  is  informed  by  the  experience  of  the  saint. 
Hence  it  is  that  often  the  best  sermons  only  play  around 
great  and  mysterious  truths  which  through  worship  are  made 
real  to  the  soul ;  then  the  clouds  disperse,  the  shadows  fly  and 
the  Invisible  is  revealed.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  what  the 
preacher  deeply  venerates  he  will  best  proclaim.  The  worship 
faith  inspires  and  the  faith  worship  clarifies  are  reciprocal  in  a 
true  theology  and  a  proficient  ambassadorship.  The  author- 
ity of  the  Gospel  owes  much  to  argument  and  exploitation. 
But  these  mainly  concern  its  outworks;  its  citadel  consists  in 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  317 

the  communion  of  those  who  have  sat,  like  Mary,  rapt  and 
blessed  at  the  Master's  feet.  Seen  by  the  sinful  as  He  is,  if 
goodness  does  not  draw  them,  weariness  and  sorrow  often 
drive  them  to  His  pardon  and  peace ;  seen  by  the  saintly,  their 
righteousness  fades  in  the  radiance  of  a  holiness  they  crave  for 
themselves;  seen  by  you  before  you  venture  again  upon  the 
errands  of  the  Cross,  the  vision  is  reflected  upon  those  to  whom 
you  minister.  In  worship  the  lives  of  countless  companies  of 
an  otherwise  obscure  caste  are  transformed,  and  become  won- 
derful examples  of  high  spiritual  existence.  They  breathe  in 
the  sanctuary  their  native  air;  the  Gospel  has  a  vital  interest 
for  them,  they  are  encompassed  by  unseen  presences,  by  the 
angels  who  are  about  the  throne  and  the  spirits  of  the  just 
made  perfect.  To  think  soberly  and  discreetly  upon  heav- 
enly things  and  to  feel  the  awe  they  generate  is  to  bring  all 
your  gifts  of  good  sense,  culture  and  insight  to  a  common 
center  around  which  they  revolve  in  your  utterance.  No  one 
can  be  constantly  employed  in  religious  work  without  realizing 
that  it  culminates  in  an  absorbing  devotion.  The  paramount 
interest  of  worship  is  the  endless  lesson  the  preacher  must  ever 
be  learning ;  for  which  the  longest  life  is  too  brief,  and  all  we 
can  do  on  earth  is  to  approximate  to  the  ideal  worship  of  the 
Church  Triumphant.  The  maxim  of  John  Smith,  the  Cam- 
bridge Platonist,  that  "such  as  men  themselves  are,  such  will 
God  appear  to  them  to  be, ' '  is  nowhere  more  applicable  than  in 
their  adorations.  For  the  pure  in  heart  a  true  worship  con- 
firms belief,  matures  character,  replenishes  virtuous  tenden- 
cies and  discloses  the  inheritance  of  the  saints.  It  is  an 
equally  admissible  deduction  from  Smith's  maxim  that  the 
tributes  of  false  worship  work  mischief.  And  one  of  the  sad- 
dest signs  of  our  day  is  its  prostitution  of  this  divine  office  to 
those  cheap  objectives  of  perverted  will  or  vain  imagination, 
which  engross  attention  by  catering  to  the  instinct  for  the 
unknown  and  the  eternal  in  degenerate  ways.  Despite  all  they 
claim,  there  is  no  paradise  possible  to  man  except  through  con- 
quered sin. 

The  love  that  is  sacrificial,  the  devout  fear  that  does  not 


318  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

bind  the  heart,  the  gratitude  evoked  by  the  thought  of  God's 
goodness,  the  penitence  that  mourns  for  offenses  committed 
against  that  goodness,  the  faith  that  relies  on  the  promises  of 
divine  grace,  all  are  elements  of  Christian  worship,  which 
must  be  deeply  pervaded  by  the  essential  virtue  of  reverence, 
that  restraining  and  mellowing  force  of  a  religion  intrinsic- 
ally revolutionary  in  its  relations  with  God.  Study  the  his- 
tory of  man 's  spiritual  development  and  you  will  perceive  that 
without  reverence  worship  withers,  religion  dwindles,  blatant 
emotionalism  supplants  ethical  integrity,  and  the  veil  which 
the  profane  contend  cannot  be  pierced  appears  impenetrable. 
What  is  the  minister  apart  from  the  Presence  which  reverence 
enthrones,  or  the  congregation  in  which  it  does  not  prescribe 
every  attitude  and  method?  As  well  think  of  a  Heaven  left 
lonely  of  a  God!  This  hits  the  spiritual  dearth  in  which  ir- 
reverence thrives,  and  against  which  an  effectual  worship  pro- 
tests. 

There  is  difference  of  opinion  about  the  ultimate  law  of 
worship,  but  for  believers  who  have  known  the  Priesthood  of 
Christ  there  can  scarcely  be  any  question  concerning  His  medi- 
ation in  their  intercourse  with  the  Father.  Some  more  frigid 
spirits  assert  their  independence  of  Him  as  their  Daysman  and 
tell  us  that  they  pray  without  a  sense  of  His  intercession  for 
them.  So  long  as  people  really  pray  to  God  one  is  not  dis- 
posed to  quarrel  with  the  particular  course  their  petitions 
take,  for  there  is  an  instinctive  discernment  of  His  infinitude 
and  man's  finiteness  which  is  one  of  the  sources  of  spiritual 
wisdom,  and  it  cannot  be  altogether  thwarted  by  outward 
circumstances  or  inward  misunderstandings.  But  for  those 
who  inwardly  experience  the  life  of  Christ,  He  is  forever  the 
way  to  the  Father  and  the  true  light  of  the  world's  worship. 
Compassionate  and  companionable,  divine  and  human,  He 
suffuses  with  every  act  of  devotion  the  peculiar  intimacy 
which  is  never  guilty  of  presumption,  the  consciousness 
of  friendship  with  God  which  ever  remembers  His  holiness 
and  bows  down  before  Him.  Our  unaided  prayers  are  some- 
times no  better  than  cryings  in  the  night,  but  when  they  orig- 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  819 

inate  in  fellowship  with  Christ  they  accord  with  the  will  of 
the  Father  and  prevail.  To  Christian  faith  Jesus  is  the  Di- 
vine Mediator  of  worship,  and  the  testimony  of  saints  as- 
cribes its  greatest  values  directly  to  Him.  Some  occasionally 
identify  the  Son  with  the  Father,  an  error  which  can  be  gently 
corrected  in  the  interest  of  devotional  propriety,  and  is  at 
times  too  severely  rebuked  by  the  stiff  specialism  of  those  who 
are  disposed  to  minify  the  Incarnation.  The  human  soul  flies 
to  Jesus  because  it  finds  the  fulness  of  the  Divine  Nature  fo- 
calized in  His  Person,  to  which  it  attaches  its  helplessness  and 
its  hope.  Through  His  mediation  in  worship  the  narrower 
frontiers  of  life  have  been  pushed  back  and  the  God  in  Christ, 
otherwise  unknown  to  men,  has  been  revealed. 

Again,  there  is  a  unifying  force  in  Christian  worship  as 
the  sustenance  of  Christian  sentiment,  to  which  the  faithful 
in  all  branches  of  the  Church,  and  poets,  musicians  and  phil- 
osophers have  variously  contributed,  thereby  destroying  spuri- 
ous systems  and  expelling  the  unworthy  by  means  of  the  noble 
in  devotion.  Thus  social  worship  has  been  wedded  to  the 
Being  of  God  for  the  propagation  of  His  holiness  and  love  in 
men's  motives,  words  and  deeds.  It  has  protected  society 
against  dissolution  and  forced  upon  its  institutions  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  a  judgment  to  come.  It  still  purifies  the 
lives  of  myriads  of  our  kind,  who  live  to  exalt  the  Blessed 
One  and  to  submit  themselves  to  His  will.  It  enables  civ- 
ilized commonwealths  to  carry  on  their  governments,  to  make 
just  laws,  to  remove  selfish  barriers,  to  build  the  Church  into 
the  whole  human  fabric.  Kant  asserted  that  morality  in  ac- 
tion could  be  universalized,  which  may  be  restated  by  saying 
that  the  principle  of  fellowship  can  be  made  supreme  and  the 
relations  of  the  Ego  and  the  Alter  adjusted  by  its  supremacy. 
Who  does  not  wish  that  this  may  be,  that  the  love  which  binds 
men  to  God  and  the  child  to  the  parent  may  overleap  all  boun- 
daries and  prevent  the  race  from  further  splitting  into  mili- 
tant fragments  and  lapsing  into  pagan  theories  of  patriotism  ? 
When  the  chasm  between  self  and  others  has  been  closed,  sep- 
arative and  hostile  tendencies  will  also  disappear.     The  mu- 


320  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

tual  interchange  of  thought,  feeling  and  will,  eventuating  in  a 
verified  oneness,  is  the  desideratum  of  society  at  this  hour.  If 
the  Church  is  to  sustain  her  cause  she  will  have  to  seek  such 
a  unity,  and  she  will  find  it  in  a  common  worship  rather  than 
in  a  common  theology.  She  is  the  depositary  of  the  historical 
processes  of  worship  instrumental  in  the  welding  of  different 
races ;  processes  guarded  by  the  genius  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
and  maintained  in  one  succession  for  two  thousand  years. 
They  environ  her  and  her  children  as  light  encompasses  the 
earth  and,  like  it,  give  her  message  vitality  and  power. 

Think  of  the  wider  intimations  of  these  processes  in  such 
poets  as  Wordsworth  and  Milton.  The  former  speaks  of 
voices  from  beyond,  not  auditions  in  the  physical  sphere  but 
spiritual  whisperings  that  stir  the  soul  and  give  it  answers  of 
recognized  intelligence  from  another  land.  Milton,  who  is 
more  to  our  purpose,  loved  to  walk  beneath  the  "high  embowed 
roof"  of  some  ancient  fane  and  listen  to  the  minstrelsies  which 
dissolved  him  into  ecstasies  and  brought  all  Heaven  before  his 
eyes.  There  is  no  need  to  amplify ;  rather  should  we  ask  our- 
selves if  the  cultured  and  comprehensive  Protestantism  of 
which  Milton's  religious  lyrics  were  typical  can  be  restored 
in  its  worship?  The  schisms  and  persecutions  that  have  dis- 
rupted catholicity  make  us  impatient  of  traditional  symbol- 
isms. Yet  have  we  not  lost  as  well  as  gained  in  the  long 
interim  between  Milton  and  contemporary  poets?  Think  of 
the  intellectual  splendor  he  gave  to  all  he  touched  relative  to 
worship,  and  contrast  his  treatment  with  the  current  efforts  of 
some  churches  to  organize  the  human  emotions  for  spiritual 
ends  in  revivalism.  It  is  not  a  cheerful  review  for  our  time, 
whatever  it  may  be  for  his.  They  are  to  be  pitied,  if  not  con- 
demned, who  content  themselves  with  the  ignorant  and  the 
puerile  in  their  approach  to  God,  and  excuse  its  frequent 
effronteries  in  the  name  of  Protestant  freedom.  Too  often 
stereotyped  observances  faintly  conceived  and  feebly  pre- 
sented are  the  utterly  insufficient  substitutes  for  those  swelling 
tides  of  praise  and  supplication  in  the  Church  which  uplift 
her  to  a  new  state  of  being.    You  should  not  endeavor  to 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  321 

stimulate  devout  sentiment  solely  by  aesthetic  appeals,  yet  if 
you  did,  there  would  be  less  of  menace  in  that  than  there  is 
in  the  slipshod  or  sensational  performances  which  degrade  the 
functions  of  worship.  Howbeit  these  evils  which  destroy  the 
very  essentials  of  a  sacrificial  worship  are  not  done  away  with 
by  denunciation.  They  abound  in  insulated  primitivism  be- 
cause there  has  been  no  deliberate  and  systematic  culture  of 
the  devout  and  reverent  spirit  which  created  the  Te  Deums 
and  litanies  of  the  past.  The  far-reaching  implications  of 
that  culture  are  ignored  by  those  who  profess  to  find  every- 
thing worship  requires  in  whatever  is  recent.  But  why  should 
you  not  once  in  a  while  take  a  lingering  retrospect  of  the  world 
of  the  Holy  Grail,  of  the  cathedrals,  of  chivalry,  of  the  Cru- 
saders and  the  Pilgrimages,  and  ask  how  it  came  to  be  what  it 
was  in  the  existence  not  only  of  the  Church  but  of  the  na- 
tions. The  pages  of  books  like  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth  or 
Henry  Adams'  Mont  Saint-Michel  and  Chartres  portray  a 
time  when  men  sang  at  their  labor  and  saw  the  glory  of  the 
Lord  in  the  humblest  vocations.  Though  their  characteristic 
achievements  may  be  beyond  our  reproductive  ability,  their 
shortcomings  are  usually  the  objects  of  our  criticism.  But 
are  we  capturing  the  age  we  know  as  they  captured  their  rude 
and  brutal  era,  or  are  we  so  poor  in  inward  grace  and  visible 
means  as  to  deprive  devotion  of  its  best  accessories?  Our 
aversions  are  perishable,  but  the  humanities  live  forever,  and 
they  live  at  their  height  when  employed  in  worship. 

You  also  face  the  fact  that  the  rituals  found  in  our  churches 
are  not  suited  to  the  situation  already  described.  They  are 
monotonous,  have  too  little  freedom  in  experiment  and  exhibit 
an  excessive  tenderness  for  what  were  once  flexible  but  are  now 
ossified  customs.  There  is  as  much  peril  in  a  Puritanism  too 
proudly  reminiscent  of  rigid  practice  as  there  is  in  an  over- 
weening sacerdotalism.  The  plea  that  we  should  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  the  demand  for  a  more  elaborate  worship  because  it 
precludes  a  prophetic  pulpit  is  not  necessarily  valid,  and  if  it 
were,  the  unchurched  multitudes  might  nevertheless  prefer 
that  sort  of  worship.     But  there  is  no  necessity  to  sacrifice 


322  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

either  to  the  other,  since  St,  Paul's  determination  to  be  all 
things  unto  all  men  if  by  any  means  he  might  save  some  is 
eminently  applicable  here.  It  would  have  seemed  impossible 
to  Scott's  contemporaries  that  his  novels  should  decline  in 
popularity;  yet  this  is  precisely  what  has  occurred,  because 
people  have  their  recurrent  moods  in  work,  recreation  and 
worship.  All  this  time,  however,  they  are  growing,  and  the 
voices  bidding  them  bethink  themselves,  which  the  pessimistic 
preacher  thinks  are  drowned  in  the  gaiety  of  the  throng,  are 
heard  in  the  heart  and  are  not  heard  in  vain.  But  men  will 
not  obey  the  Spirit's  promptings  in  our  prescribed  modes. 
The  doleful  ones,  who  before  the  war  mourned  the  lack  of 
cohesive  discipline  and  erected  monuments  to  a  vanished  obedi- 
ence, simply  sought  the  living  among  the  dead.  The  conflict 
gave  the  lie  to  their  lamentations,  and  it  showed  that  men 
and  women  are  still  capable  of  steady  and  united  action. 
Could  a  similarly  organized  energy  be  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Church  and  her  worship,  what  is  there  she  could  not  do  for 
Christ?  Do  not  believe  but  that  it  can  be  hers,  if  she  will 
heed  the  admonitions  of  a  richly  varied  and  dramatic  human 
existence  and  furnish  the  forms  of  worship  it  requires.  But 
should  the  Church  remain  dismembered,  broken  into  sec- 
tarian fragments  which  minister  to  merely  private  pieties, 
she  will  operate  upon  a  contracting  instead  of  an  expanding 
scale.  She  worships  vicariously  as  well  as  for  herself,  and 
desires  correspondence  with  multitudes  outside  her  pale,  many 
of  whom  could  be  paganized  almost  as  easily  as  they  could  be 
diverted  from  spiritualized  symbolism.  The  stringent  policies 
which  have  hitherto  forbidden  even  a  modified  ceremonialism 
are  being  undermined  by  circumstances,  and  you  may  be  cer- 
tain that  the  descendants  of  men  who  once  made  religion  the 
primal  business  of  nascently  democratic  states  will  not  be 
found  wanting  in  the  requisites  which  repeat  that  ancestral 
deed. 

But  there  is  another  and  a  very  important  side  to  this  ques- 
tion. For  while  we  are  or  should  be  the  straitest  censors  of 
ourselves,  you  are  to  remember  that  the  shallow  souls  who 


PREACHINX5  AND  WORSHIP  323 

underestimate  worship  are  not  confined  to  Protestantism. 
Useless  repetitions  flourish  unconcerned  in  other  ecclesiastical 
households.  Liturgical  services  intoned  in  beautiful  and 
stately  buildings  do  not  of  themselves  induce  the  wicked  to 
repent.  Even  a  studied  decorum  is  sometimes  no  more  than 
a  pretty  mockery  of  genuine  reverence,  a  superficial  manner- 
ism concealing  the  spirit's  wanderings  from  God.  The  "dis- 
sidence  of  dissent,"  which  Matthew  Arnold  satirized,  had  its 
peculiarities,  but  it  was  seldom  discourteous  to  the  indwelling 
Heavenly  Guest.  Furthermore,  provided  worship  be  rea- 
sonable, revelatory,  reverent,  its  range  is  usually  commensu- 
rate with  the  requirements  of  the  congregation.  Three  con- 
crete illustrations  of  this  statement  are  fixed  among  the  recol- 
lections of  my  student  days.  The  first  was  a  Salvation  Army 
service  conducted  by  Mrs.  Catherine  Booth,  the  foremost 
woman  of  the  nineteenth  century  pulpit.  Nothing,  could  have 
been  more  appropriate  than  this  gifted  lady's  coalescence  with 
her  audience.  The  thousands  of  neglected  folk  who  hung 
upon  her  lips  were  as  responsive  as  the  polite  congregations 
held  spellbound  by  the  sonorous  tones  of  a  national  thanks- 
giving at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  I  was  impressed  by  the  in- 
tense spirituality  of  the  whole  service.  It  was  indeed  wor- 
ship of  a  true  character,  in  which  the  love  of  ritual  expressed 
itself  through  military  uniforms  suited  to  the  tastes  of  those 
they  were  intended  to  attract,  while  a  tuneful  band  led  the 
singing.  The  proportion  of  praise,  prayer  and  exhortation 
was  well  kept,  and  religious  benefits  were  obtained  which 
could  not  have  been  so  fully  secured  by  other  methods.  The 
second  instance  occurred  in  the  West  London  Mission,  then 
under  the  superintendency  of  the  late  Hugh  Price  Hughes, 
and  located  in  the  heart  of  a  district  which  Hall  Caine  rightly 
named  "the  Devil's  Acre."  For  an  hour  before  Mr.  Hughes 
appeared  an  orchestra  rendered  classical  music  to  an  audi- 
ence consisting  of  every  class,  including  not  a  few  evidently 
dissipated,  and  the  entire  number  representative  of  that  part 
of  mighty  London,  Presently  the  preacher  came  upon  the 
platform,  a  man  of  first  rate  gifts  and  culture,  and  exceed- 


324  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ingly  forcible  as  a  great  advocate  of  Christianity,  intent  on 
securing  a  favorable  verdict  from  his  hearers.  He  preached 
with  ardor  and  fidelity,  and  I  went  away  rejoicing  that  here 
was  a  minister  who  rose  above  even  his  high  reputation. 
The  orchestra  was  his  agency  for  an  artistic  rendition  of  sa- 
cred themes ;  the  sermon  stood  out  from  its  surroundings  like 
a  tall  tree  in  a  forest;  and  as  in  the  East  End  with  Mrs. 
Booth  so  in  the  West  End  with  Mr.  Hughes  there  was  a  col- 
laboration of  worship  with  popular  necessities.  The  third  in- 
stance came  still  nearer  to  the  sum  of  the  best  ideals  of  the 
sanctuary.  The  church  was  the  Abbey  of  St.  Peter  in  "West- 
minster, and  the  preacher  was  Phillips  Brooks.  Sir  Frederick 
Bridge  was  at  the  organ,  the  harmonies  of  Purcell  and  Mozart 
preceded  the  sermon,  and  the  Hallelujah  Chorus  from  Han- 
del's Messiah  followed  it.  I  chanced  to  sit  in  Poets'  Corner, 
hard  by  the  grave  of  the  composer,  and  when  the  congrega- 
tion arose  at  the  first  strains  of  the  incomparable  choir  and 
paid  its  homage  to  the  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords  I 
could  have  touched  Handel's  tomb.  The  occasion,  the  place, 
the  prayers,  the  anthems,  the  sight  of  America's  noblest 
preacher  in  that  venerable  pulpit,  and  the  message  he  deliv- 
ered from  it,  were  a  harmonious  unity  obedient  to  the  man- 
dates that  divine  worship  enjoins,  making  the  service  one  of 
those  holy  memories  which  are  an  inspiration  and  a  strength 
for  after  days. 

I  submit  that  these  instances  were  indicative  of  the  unifying 
force  of  worship.  They  had  a  practically  identical  religious 
effect  without  respect  to  persons,  and  a  spiritual  aristocracy 
of  thought  and  feeling  reigned  alike  in  all.  Rank,  wealth,  cul- 
ture, position,  or  their  utter  absence,  were  absorbed  by  the 
desire  for  religious  elevation.  They  were  schools  of  Christ, 
in  which  three  of  His  distinguished  servants  held  their  fel- 
low men  to  His  claims  and  aroused  in  them  the  faith  which 
makes  His  disciples  equal  before  their  Maker,  enabling  them 
to  honor  all  men;  a  scriptural  precept  few  indeed  have 
obeyed.  Would  that  the  materialistic  views  that  pollute  social 
propaganda   by    aiming   to    produce    well-fed,    comfortably- 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  325 

housed,  eflBcient  animals  rather  than  men  and  women  alive 
unto  God.  could  be  silenced,  and  the  secularization  of  society 
halted  by  the  worship  which  first  sees  all  souls,  however  mean 
and  unlovely,  as  the  offspring  and  heirs  of  their  Creator. 
For  such  worship  is  as  surely  one  of  the  nurseries  of  social 
regeneration  as  it  is  the  setting  of  a  prophetic  pulpit. 

The  Divine  Spirit  speaks  in  divers  ways  to  men.  His 
power  pulsates  in  the  Sistine  Madonna,  before  which  Crabb 
Robinson  stood  for  hours  and  then  exclaimed,  ' '  Now  I  believe 
in  the  Incarnation!"  The  Spirit  taught  the  builders  of  the 
aisles  of  Lincoln  and  Salisbury  their  cunning,  and  His  light 
shines  through  the  storied  windows  of  the  Sainte-Chapelle  at 
Paris  and  St.  Gudulph's  at  Brussels.  His  harmonies  are 
heard  in  the  music  of  Bach  and  Beethoven ;  His  thoughts  are 
vocal  in  the  lyrics  of  St.  Bernard  and  the  poetry  of  Browning. 
These,  you  will  say,  are  the  consummation  of  art,  but  are  they 
not  also  tokens  of  the  perfect  life  men  long  to  find  more 
fully?  Yet  it  is  a  facile  transition  from  pure  worship  to 
those  pleasurable  emotions  awakened  by  beautiful  symbolism, 
which  do  not  sustain  the  soul  of  faith  so  much  as  they  please 
the  aesthetic  sensibilities.  You  must  not  be  pressed  down 
beneath  their  weight,  like  mediaeval  knights  in  the  tourney  who 
were  sometimes  stifled  by  their  gilded  armor.  I  commend  no 
rule  at  this  point  except  that  discrimination  which  regards  the 
people  you  serve  and  then  adapts  methods  of  worship  to  their 
condition.  But  when  the  choice  has  to  be  made  between  em- 
bellishing worship  with  dignified  ceremonialism  and  lowering 
it  to  suit  the  craving  for  crass  vulgarity,  it  should  not  be 
difficult  for  you  to  decide.  The  priestless  reticence  of  a 
Friends'  Meeting  House  or  the  impressive  severities  of  a 
Scotch  Covenanting  Kirk  or  the  freedom  of  the  Congregational 
order  of  devotion,  which  covers  the  difference  between  the 
liturgical  services  of  the  late  Dr.  Henry  Allon  and  the  con- 
spicuous plainness  of  many  New  England  churches,  may  be 
more  to  your  liking  than  the  venerable  liturgies  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  and  the  rites  and  rubrics  of  Anglicanism. 
In  these  preferences  you  must  follow  your  heart 's  lead,  with- 


326  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

out  a  doubt  that  there  is  room  in  all  of  them  for  the  saving 
grace  and  wisdom  of  Grod. 

n 

American  churches  are  not  always  well  advised  in  their 
choice  of  constructive  forms  of  worship.  Our  ministry  is  com- 
paratively strong  in  courage,  independence  and  other  qualities 
natural  to  a  young  and  singularly  fortunate  nation.  But  our 
very  unconventionality  occasionally  tempts  us  to  forsake  tra- 
ditions of  demonstrated  excellence  for  rash  experiments.  The 
clergymen  of  the  older  world  are  in  constant  contact  with  the 
wonders  of  historic  Christianity.  They  know  the  actual  scenes 
where  prophets  have  "hurled  tempestuous  glories"  from  their 
thrones.     They 

".  .  .  could  not  print 

Ground  where  the  grass  had  yielded  to  the  steps 

Of  generations  of  illustrious  men, 

Unmoved.     They  could  not  always  lightly  pass 

Through  the  same  gateways,  sleep  where  they  had  slept, 

Wake  where  they  waked,  range  that  enclosure  old, 

That  garden  of  great  intellects,  undisturbed." 

Herein  is  the  explanation  of  the  good  pulpit  manners  of  the 
best  British  preachers.  They  respect  the  dignified  procedure 
necessary  to  devotional  gatherings,  and  impart  to  their  minis- 
trations that  indefinable  attraction  of  bearing  which  is  to  wor- 
ship what  the  perfume  is  to  the  flower.  Their  representative 
divines  are  seldom  heard  without  the  consciousness  that  they 
deem  the  Church  the  apotheosis  of  society  and  the  state  but 
as  the  chief  way  in  which  humanity  has  grouped  itself.  Such 
subordination  is  foreign  to  our  conception  because  this  conti- 
nent is  measurably  new,  romantic,  in  process  of  becoming, 
with  the  fascination  attending  one  of  the  last  pioneer  lands  of 
Christendom.  Probably  Europe  has  much  to  teach  us,  but 
she  is  somewhat  weary  and  disillusioned ;  and,  though  having 
much  to  learn,  we  are  still  vigorous  and  optimistic.     No  na- 


PEEACHING  AND  WORSHIP  327 

tion,  except  Japan,  has  proved  itself  so  plastic  as  ours  to 
fresh  impressions  or  readier  in  its  reception  of  ideas  hitherto 
strange. 

We  have  recently  seen  with  what  hazard  an  eminence  is  at- 
tributed to  the  state  which  the  ethical  character  of  its  politics 
does  not  justify,  and  not  a  few  leaders  are  convinced  that  the 
Church  must  figure  more  largely  in  the  national  mind  as  the 
embodiment  of  supreme  righteousness.  But  how  is  this  to  be 
brought  about?  Here  again  the  state  precedes  us.  It  ac- 
claims its  heroes,  parades  its  insignia,  erects  statues  in  promi- 
nent places  and  publicly  recognizes  brave  actions  and  valuable 
services.  Every  man,  woman  and  child  participates  in  this 
"order  of  worship."  The  boy  or  girl  follows  the  garlanded 
regiment  with  glee,  the  older  people  see  in  its  march  the  ful- 
filment of  their  dreams.  But  their  united  tributes  fade, 
while  the  greatness  of  the  world's  Redeemer  forever  remains. 
What  has  the  Church  done  to  proclaim  Him  not  only  by 
preaching,  now  so  widely  neglected,  but  in  open  ways  that  set 
aside  mistaken  privacy?  Let  us  enthrone  God  in  Christ  in 
worship,  not  before  His  professed  followers  alone  but  before 
all  peoples.  It  was  a  praiseworthy  impulse  that  bade  General 
Booth  inscribe  the  heraldries  of  Christ  on  the  flags  converted 
outcasts  carried  through  the  streets.  Secluded  saints  may  re- 
cite their  creeds  and  sing  their  hymns  to  their  own  satisfac- 
tion, but  the  prophetic  instinct  drives  you  to  the  countless 
throngs  which  depart  from  their  highest  good  and  compels 
you  to  believe  that  worship  must  be  mobilized  for  their  imme- 
diate benefit,  and  its  individualistic  tendencies  overcome. 

True  worship  involves  no  lapses  into  infantilcv  stages  of 
credulity.  It  is  best  secured  by  the  eclectic  preferences  which 
call  no  forms  unclean  at  the  behest  of  prejudice,  and  are 
bent  on  uniting  the  best  in  old  and  new  symbolisms  for  its  ex- 
pression. The  spiritual  gravity,  delicacy  of  feeling  and  de- 
vout behavior  of  men  given  to  prayer  are  just  as  essential  to  an 
open-air  gathering  as  to  a  cathedral  audience.  Make  these 
virtues  your  own ;  they  check  self-sufficiency  and  blatant  rhet- 
oric and  bestow  dignity  and  value  on  every  office  of  worship. 


328  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

It  is  possible  for  a  preacher  to  be  conversant  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, to  have  a  great  love  for  them,  and  yet  to  be  without  the 
faith  that  conquers  the  world.  It  is  also  possible  for  congre- 
gations merely  to  admire  what  is  holy  because  they  would 
regard  it  as  monstrous  not  to  revere  sacred  truth.  But  they 
must  advance  beyond  these  primary  stages  and  conceive  that 
true  worship  which  is  of  the  heart.  The  church  of  whispered 
colloquies,  belated  notices,  sermon-lectures  and  theatrical  com- 
promises can  be  transformed  into  the  dwelling-place  of  the 
living  God  by  prayer  and  worship.  Then  the  people  who 
gather  there  will  eat  the  heavenly  manna  and  live  and  cause 
others  to  live.  The  signs  of  this  transformation  are  not  found 
in  comments  on  the  sermon  or  the  anthem,  but  in  the  exclama- 
tion, ' '  Lo  God  is  here !  let  us  adore !  And  own  how  dreadful 
is  the  place." 

You  do  not  have  to  attempt  a  philosophy  of  prayer  as  the 
transcendent  agency  in  worship,  the  source  and  completion  of 
its  devotion.  Assume  its  merits,  put  them  to  the  test;  then 
you  will  escape  the  world  of  sense  and  the  machineries  of 
ritual.  Practice  pastoral  supplication  not  in  the  unfaith  dis- 
guised as  simple  submission  to  the  inevitable,  but  in  the  radi- 
ant strength  and  confidence  created  by  the  promises  of  Christ. 
Those  promises  dismiss  the  inventions  which  divide  Time  and 
Eternity  and  usher  you  into  a  personal  intimacy,  the  speech 
of  which  is  not  that  of  logic  but  of  love.  It  is  a  turning  point 
in  your  life  when  you  are  made  the  priest  of  the  people 
through  your  freedom  of  access  to  the  Mercy  Seat.  Your  peti- 
tions may  always  have  been  sincere,  but  they  have  to  become 
ministerial,  to  move  other  hearts  to  pray,  to  dismiss  from  them 
the  extenuations  of  self-love,  to  recall  to  confession  their  faults 
and  transgressions,  to  instill  in  the  bowed  and  contrite  audi- 
ence the  consciousness  of  Divine  forgiveness  and  illumina- 
tion. Were  this  profound  process  modified,  how  unwholesome 
pastoral  prayer  would  be,  how  productive  of  the  unreality 
which  finally  degenerates  into  hypocrisy!  It  is  the  helpless- 
ness of  the  creature  that  drives  him  to  supplication,  his  knowl- 
edge of  infirmities  of  temper  and  will,  which  it  is  a  vain  labor 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  329 

to  try  to  cure.  Through  you  he  lays  hold  on  the  faith  which 
assures  him  that  if  any  man  sin  he  has  an  Advocate  with  the 
Father,  and  that  those  who  come  to  that  Advocate  He  will  in 
no  wise  cast  out.  These  spiritual  apprehensions  and  satisfac- 
tions arise  like  incense  from  the  congregations  to  which  you 
minister.  Their  travail  from  death  unto  life  is  always  before 
you,  and  the  requests  with  thanksgiving  which  you  make 
known  unto  God  for  them  are  a  universal  experience  in  the 
Church.  Yet  there  as  elsewhere  are  men  and  women  who 
crave  a  religion  that  addresses  the  senses  and  bids  for  tem- 
poral prosperity.  The  outward  forms  of  the  household  of 
faith  are  more  grateful  to  them  than  its  inmost  life  and 
teaching.  The  golden  calf  was  erected  under  the  Mount  of 
the  law  by  rebellious  Hebrews  because  they  demanded  gods  that 
could  be  seen  and  that  would  go  before  them,  condoning  their 
folly  and  their  pride.  Nevertheless  men  and  women  who  are 
of  the  world  conceal  in  their  hearts  some  ideals  of  truth, 
beauty  and  a  Divine  Being.  They  have  felt  the  Spirit  of  love 
breathing  within  them,  the  Spirit  Who  fills  them  with  the 
desire  to  live  for  Him.  Pray  therefore  without  ceasing  and 
inspire  others  thus  to  pray;  this  is  fundamental. 

Beware  of  deflections  from  fellowship  with  Heaven  which 
corrupt  public  uses  of  prayer.  Draw  near  to  the  Giver  of 
every  good  and  perfect  gift  in  the  faith  that  must  be  answered 
because  of  your  personal  acceptance  of  the  Divine  Will,  in 
the  filial  confidence  our  Lord  Himself  displayed,  in  the  as- 
surance that  the  Father  is  all-powerful  to  do,  all-wise  to  know, 
all-loving  to  give;  in  brief,  in  the  Name  that  is  above  every 
name,  believing  that  for  every  diflficulty  sin  and  injustice 
have  created,  for  every  request  regenerated  manhood  makes, 
there  is  full  and  sufficient  provision.  Let  your  prayers  repro- 
duce Christ's  revelation  of  God  as  the  perfect  embodiment  of 
beneficence  and  law.  Then  specific  and  general  prayer  will 
do  much  to  solve  the  problems  of  your  ministry  and  quicken 
its  devotional  character. 

The  public  prayer  that  best  articulates  worship  is  more 
largely  a  gift  than  is  ordinarily  suspected.    Men  who  are 


330  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

not  remarkable  in  prophecy  excel  in  priesthood,  while  others 
who  are  notable  as  preachers  always  find  it  an  effort  to  pray. 
Of  course  all  men  can  and  ought  to  pray,  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment regards  prayer  as  an  instinctive  act,  yet  one  of  the  argu- 
ments for  a  liturgy  is  the  dearth  of  spontaneity  in  prayer. 
When  it  is  forced  and  embarrassed,  it  is  a  grave  hindrance 
to  Divine  intercourse  upon  the  part  of  the  people ;  and  there 
should  be  no  irremovable  objection  to  the  use  of  a  liturgy 
patterned,  for  example,  after  the  peerless  model  of  the 
Anglican  Church.  It  would  seem  as  though  God  had  given 
to  some  of  His  ambassadors  special  powers  of  entreaty  as 
distinct  as  the  sense  of  color  in  Eembrandt  or  of  tremulous 
light  and  shade  in  Ruysdael.  Apply  yourselves  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  these  powers  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  and  should 
they  prove  reluctant  resort  to  the  best  books  of  devotion  to 
refresh  them.  Do  not  read  your  own  prayers  if  you  can 
possibly  avoid  it,  nor  include  in  them  private  requests  unless 
these  can  be  presented  with  due  reticence.  Variation  in 
prayer  is  as  desirable  as  it  is  in  preaching,  and  its  benefit 
reveals  itself  more  fully  in  those  petitions  which  indicate 
definite  preparation.  Sterile  minds  fly  to  cant  phrases,  and 
bestrew  their  supplications  with  reiterations,  effeminacies  and 
saccharine  endearments  which  are  offensive.  Keep  before  you 
the  repetitions  you  must  use  as  resting  places  for  the  mind 
of  prayer,  and  let  every  solicitation  be  moulded  by  those  great 
examples  which  are  found  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of 
St.  Paul.  A  rich  vocabulary  without  the  suspicion  of  af- 
fectation or  profuseness  but  dynamic  and  appropriate;  the 
touch  of  imagination  that  rejects  trite  terms  and  puts  the 
intrinsic  truth  they  contain  in  more  suitable  forms ;  the  study 
of  such  masters  of  prayer  as  Joseph  Parker,  George  Mathe- 
son  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  are  suggestive  methods  for 
your  ministry  of  prayer.  Keep  at  hand  the  meditations  of 
men  of  a  deeply  devotional  habit  and  try  to  make  more 
worthy  what  you  offer  to  God  by  their  superior  thoughts  and 
words.  Such  men  are  authoritative  upon  prayer,  in  which 
they  take  delight,  working  themselves  out,  as  it  were,  in  its 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  331 

various  phases,  and  entirely  absorbed  in  Him  Who  works 
through  them.  They  show  the  high  reality  of  the  priestly 
office  and  the  difference  between  its  mere  shell  and  its  spir- 
itual substance.  Assemblies  in  which  they  minister  are  likely 
to  be  means  of  present  blessing  and  cherished  religious  mem- 
ories. Yet  speaking  for  myself  I  confess  that  after  I  have 
consulted  these  saintly  authors  it  is  the  consciousness  of  my 
own  relation  to  the  diversified  needs  of  a  congregation  of 
souls  that  drives  me  to  a  further  preparation  befitting  one 
who  must  stand  between  them  and  the  Eternal  Father.  They 
cooperate  in  the  contacts  of  worship  to  obtain  direct  religious 
relief  and  inspiration.  Whether  viewed  subjectively  as  the 
rule  of  their  inner  life  or  objectively  in  respect  to  its  credenda, 
worship  is  at  once  the  consummation  of  their  social  impulse 
and  your  amplest  opportunity  for  communicating  its  sanctifi- 
cation.  It  should  be  admonitory,  solemn,  comforting,  joyous, 
enthusiastic,  and  chastened  by  godly  fear.  These  qualities 
are  due  to  prayer,  which  is  not  only  work,  but  work  in  its 
supreme  meanings,  carrying  toward  their  perfection  the 
noblest  ends  of  human  being.  That  you  should  pray  aright 
as  a  pastor,  it  is  essential  for  you  to  know  intimately  those 
for  whom  you  pray.  Consider  their  different  circumstances, 
aspirations  and  implicit  trust;  learn  how  to  translate  into 
warm  and  tender  petitions  the  sacred  convictions  and  senti- 
ments of  your  flock.  Still  the  tumult  of  their  souls  by  the 
suffusion  of  a  quiet  confidence.  Pour  out  your  sympathetic 
self  when  you  thus  pray  for  and  with  others,  because,  as  a 
rule,  they  do  not  express  themselves  freely.  On  the  contrary, 
they  often  find  it  exceedingly  difScult  to  indicate  what  they 
most  desire,  and  your  utterance  must  be  the  speech  of  their 
inmost  selves.  In  every  audience  thus  engaged  there  is  a 
microcosm  of  humanity,  of  its  sins  and  backslidings,  peni- 
tences and  confessions,  cravings  for  pardon  and  reconciliation 
and  its  anticipation  of  a  blissful  immortality.  Side  by  side 
are  the  devotees  of  this  world  and  the  next,  vanity's  parade 
and  the  chaste  loveliness  of  spiritual  intercourse.  To  abolish 
this  contradiction  and  thereby  increase  the  spirit  of  worship 


332  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

in  your  congregation  it  is  imperative  that  you  yourself  shall 
possess  the  open  vision,  the  sure  word,  the  steady  glow  of 
vital  piety.  As  the  moon,  which  shines  not  by  its  own  light 
but  by  that  of  the  sun,  moves  all  the  slumbering  oceans  of  the 
planet,  so  Christ's  true  priests  who  gain  audience  with  the 
Divine  in  public  prayer  obtain  what  St.  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria called  ''mutual  and  reciprocal  correspondence"  with 
God,  and  thereby  set  in  motion  the  filial  activities  of  His 
children. 

Ill 

In  the  sanctuary  praise  encircles  prayer  with  a  golden  halo. 
Its  "psalms,  hymns  and  spiritual  songs"  are  the  native  lan- 
guage of  the  Faith.  The  foundations  of  Israel's  prophetic 
freedom  and  of  the  Church  of  the  New  Covenant  were  laid 
amid  the  hymnings  of  the  first  singers  who  recorded  the  vic- 
tories of  God's  providence  and  grace  in  their  lyrics.  It  is 
not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  Christianity  owes  the  preserva- 
tion of  its  life,  the  purity  of  its  belief  and  the  persistence  of 
its  mission,  in  a  large  measure,  to  the  matchless  anthems 
which  have  heralded  its  course  down  the  ages.  "True  sing- 
ing," as  Carlyle  said,  "is  of  the  nature  of  worship,  whereof 
such  singing  is  but  the  record  and  melodious  representation 
to  us."  It  would  be  strange  if  a  religion  which  calls  upon 
its  adherents  to  "rejoice  evermore  and  in  everything  to 
give  thanks"  did  not  afford  the  fullest  range  for  suitable 
praise,  nor  reckon  upon  its  moulding  influence  in  human  char- 
acter. It  regulates  the  affections  in  delightful  ways,  com- 
poses and  cheers  the  soul,  banishes  levity  and  boisterousness 
and  fills  the  mind  with  serene  and  lofty  conceptions  of  sacred 
realities.  The  regenerated  heart  and  the  conscience  void  of 
offense  will  always  be  the  theaters  of  praise,  and  will  evince 
their  gratitude  and  contentment  to  the  outside  world.  One 
can  mark  the  processes  of  Christian  development  whether  in 
the  believer  or  the  Church  at  large  by  the  psalms  and  lyrics 
which  have  swayed  the  souls  of  the  nations  and  which  sig- 
nified the  firm  and  intelligent  hold  of  entire  communities  and 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  333 

peoples  upon  standard  truths  and  doctrines.  The  cementing 
strength  of  union  and  fortitude  among  persecuted  households, 
downtrodden  tribes  and  oppressed  sects  is  to  be  found  in  their 
religious  stanzas  set  to  appropriate  melodies.  In  these,  as  in 
nothing  else,  the  triumphs  of  God's  deliverances  are  cele- 
brated. They  echoed  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea,  in  the 
catacombs  of  Rome,  the  recesses  of  Eastern  desert  hermitages, 
the  fastnesses  of  Alpine  mountains,  the  glens  of  covenanting 
Scotland,  the  forests  that  skirted  Plymouth  Bay,  and  the 
camp-meetings  of  early  Methodism.  The  passional  forces 
which  found  a  profitable  outlet  in  Christian  praise  have  aug- 
mented its  worship-values  beyond  all  knowledge.  The  range 
of  that  praise  covers  the  Hebrew  Psalter,  the  matchless  hymns 
of  the  Gospel  of  the  Nativity  and  the  chosen  lyrics  of  evan- 
gelical history.  Arius,  though  an  acute  disputant,  did  not 
rely  upon  his  logic  alone  for  the  spread  of  his  ideas,  but  wrote 
songs  for  sailors,  plowmen  and  pilgrims.  St.  Chrysostom 
cultivated  psalmody  in  the  Church  at  Constantinople  to  con- 
trovert Arian  heresies,  and  St.  Augustine  composed  an  elabo- 
rate hymn  to  fortify  his  people  against  the  Donatists.  The 
medisevalists,  monks,  friars,  students  and  wayfarers  included, 
took  to  the  highways  in  singing  bands,  and  all  the  fasts  and 
festivals  of  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  accompanied 
by  appropriate  chantings.  The  Lollards  propagated  their 
teachings  by  popular  melodies;  Luther's  Ein'  Feste  Burg  was 
the  battle  hymn  of  the  new  Republic  established  in  free  grace 
for  all  mankind.  Since  then  what  these  widely  separated 
brethren,  who  were  nevertheless  in  many  essentials  one,  ex- 
pressed in  their  praise  has  girdled  the  globe. 

It  is  asserted  that  half  a  million  hymns,  to  say  nothing  of 
kindred  poems,  or  of  anthems  and  oratorios,  are  the  vehicles 
of  praise  in  the  modern  Church.  As  such  they  are  almost 
entirely  free  from  the  controversial  spirit  that  harasses  doc- 
trinal statements,  and  yet  nothing  is  so  confident  as  hymnol- 
ogy  in  its  assumptions  or  in  its  invocation  of  the  Eternal. 
Stormy  seas  of  theological  and  ecclesiastical  differences  which 
too  few  care  to  cross  separate  the  various  territories  of  the 


334  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Christian  brotherhood.  But  praise  pacifies  their  rage ;  Roman 
Catholic  and  Protestant  unconsciously  unite  in  those  lyrical 
ascriptions  which  make  their  Sabbath  keeping  a  common  ex- 
perience. Actual  contact  with  the  unseen,  upon  which 
everything  in  worship  depends,  is  here  unhampered  by 
doctrinal  quarrels,  and  strikes  the  believing  soul  with  the 
impact  of  a  fresh  discovery.  The  solemn  shadow  of  the 
cross  which  is  the  very  glory  of  religious  radiance,  the 
spirit  that  sentinels  the  breast  expectant  of  the  Lord's  ap- 
proach; the  trials  and  the  patience  of  a  nation's  or  an  indi- 
vidual's faith;  the  triumph  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  are  alike 
within  the  compass  of  the  hymns  of  the  Church.  They  afford 
the  surest  evidence  that  one  life  runs  through  every  branch 
of  the  Vine  and  that  every  believing  spirit  belongs  to  an 
all  comprehensive  fellowship.  Such  communion  with  God 
rises  above  images,  latinities,  material  presences  in  bread 
and  wine,  liturgical  arrangements,  historic  episcopates  and 
valid  ordinations,  like  the  eagle  of  the  sky  above  the 
growths  of  the  plain.  The  well-known  stanzas  of  "Jesus, 
Lover  of  my  soul,"  which  tell  of  the  mediatorship  of  Christ; 
of  "Praise  to  the  Holiest  in  the  heights,"  which  laud  the  In- 
carnate Saviour;  "of  "0  God,  our  help  in  ages  past,"  which 
ascribe  providential  supremacy  to  Jehovah;  of  "The  God  of 
Abraham  praise, ' '  filled  as  they  are  with  majestic  Theism,  put 
the  whole  matter  to  proof.  In  them  the  Being  and  the  In- 
carnation of  the  Everlasting  One  are  more  vividly  portrayed 
than  in  the  prose  of  the  most  competent  Christian  thinkers. 
Sacred  lyrics  of  the  highest  order  give  to  worship  catholicity, 
spontaneity,  access  and  conscious  acceptance.  Where  they  are 
sung  the  dreariest  lot  is  transformed ;  night  is  turned  into  day, 
the  patience  of  hope  and  the  labor  of  love  are  reenfranchised. 
In  their  arrangement  of  the  order  of  worship  some  min- 
isters act  on  the  principle  that  it  should  be  a  unity.  Their 
hymns,  lessons  and  prayers  are  subordinated  to  the  sermon 
and  emphasize  the  same  message  and  have  the  same  tone.  I 
agree  with  Dr.  Dale  that  it  is  wiser  to  impart  variety  to 
worship.     Thereby  you  appeal  to  variant  moods  and  quicken 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  335 

the  interest  of  the  congregation  in  what  it  is  about.  How 
often  a  magnificent  hymn  or  anthem  has  redeemed  the  inade- 
quacy of  other  acts  of  worship.  Let  the  Lord 's  Day  morning 
hour  ring  with  salutations  to  the  God  Whose  goodness  is  an 
unfathomed  sea;  its  evening  shadows  be  illumined  by  hymns 
which  bespeak  the  companionship  of  the  Christ  Who  journeyed 
to  Emmaus,  and  the  intervening  moments  of  praise  proclaim 
in  divers  tones  the  heavenly  themes  which  awake  the  heart. 
"All  poetry,"  said  Browning  in  a  letter  to  Ruskin,  "is  the 
problem  of  putting  the  infinite  into  the  finite. ' '  Give  hymns  a 
wide  opening  for  their  rich  profusion,  and  they  will  solve  the 
problem  of  which  Browning  spoke.  Reflect,  however,  that  if 
you  would  find  sustenance  for  acceptable  worship,  the  best 
hymns,  and  those  alone,  must  be  appropriated.  Be  fastidious 
at  this  point,  for  Protestantism  in  its  more  primitive  forms 
is  deluged  with  doggerel  that  often  does  not  even  rime.  Of- 
fer nothing  to  Heaven's  holiness  except  the  choicest  harmon- 
ies that  earth  can  produce.  An  educational  campaign  for 
the  rescue  of  worship  from  the  ineptitude  and  irreverence  in- 
flicted upon  it  by  vitiated  taste  has  long  been  overdue.  You 
will  be  fortunate  if  you  receive  the  help  of  a  music  committee 
which  knows  something  about  the  rudiments  of  music,  and 
of  a  choirmaster  who  upraises  the  whole  service  by  the  healthy 
stimulus  he  imparts  to  it.  Dr.  Harry  Rowe  Shelley  minis- 
ters to  audiences  in  the  church  I  serve  not  only  because  of 
his  notable  gifts  as  an  organist  and  a  composer,  but  because 
he  thoroughly  appreciates  the  proper  subordination  of  the 
choir  to  congregational  worship.  Zundel  did  the  same  thing 
for  Beecher,  and  Dudley  Buck,  one  of  the  fathers  of  sacred 
music  in  America,  knew  how  to  utilize  to  the  full  of  the  re- 
sources of  his  great  profession.  The  end  of  worship  is  to 
realize  the  communion  of  saints  by  making  all  its  acts  the 
prophecy  of  that  communion  uttered  in  a  universal  speech. 
The  average  Protestant  service  is  too  much  monopolized  by 
the  minister,  and  a  great  deal  of  it  could  be  handed  over  to 
the  congregation  with  salutary  effect.  Psalms  to  repeat  and 
canticles  to  chant,  confessions  and  thanksgivings  to  say  in 


336  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

imison,  or  antiphonal  and  responsive  selections,  dismiss  in- 
difference in  the  House  of  God  and  give  a  personal  interest 
to  worship. 

You  should  reserve  the  public  reading  of  the  appointed 
lessons  to  yourself  and  take  pains  to  read  them  in  an  ac- 
ceptable manner.  Why  has  this  most  important  part  of  wor- 
ship had  to  contend  with  almost  insuperable  difficulties  ?  The 
Bible  is  written  in  the  noblest  English  extant;  it  concerns 
subjects  of  universal  and  undying  interest;  it  is  endeared  to 
every  listener  by  tradition  and  recollection,  and  yet  the  evi- 
dence proves  that  it  is  seldom  read  aloud  as  George  Osborn 
could  read  it,  or  Dean  Welldon  of  Manchester  reads  it  to-day. 
There  is  an  extraordinary  scope  in  the  Scriptures  for  every 
kind  of  admissible  elocution;  they  resemble  in  breadth  and 
dignity  a  Beethoven  symphony.  The  task  of  the  musician 
is  to  interpret  that  symphony  fully;  the  task  of  the  min- 
ister is  to  do  likewise  for  the  Bible.  But  as  a  rule,  with 
many  and  marked  exceptions,  the  clerical  reader  runs  through 
his  work  m  a  mechanical  uninterested  way,  with  muffled  articu- 
lation, a  dull  monotone  or  misplaced  emphasis.  Study  the 
lessons  beforehand,  make  every  passage  convey  its  own  mean- 
ing, and  you  will  be  recognized  as  a  welcome  medium  for 
their  transmission. 

In  conclusion,  be  assured  that  the  Church  of  God  is  all  that 
she  claims  to  be  and  infinitely  more,  and  that  the  same  holds 
true  of  her  prophecy,  priesthood  and  worship.  Her  visible 
life,  from  the  lowly  meeting  house  of  the  rustic  lane  to  the 
"great,  ghostly,  darkling  domes"  of  the  cathedral  and  every- 
thing they  house  and  celebrate — what  is  it  but  the  praise  of 
the  All-Holy  One,  the  praise  which  will  be  vocal  when  sec- 
tarian dissensions  are  not  regarded  even  as  curiosities?  See 
in  the  material  forms  of  stately  or  humble  churches  the  con- 
secration devout  men  made  of  themselves  and  their  substance 
because  of  their  thankfulness  for  the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.  Go  to  Nature  for  her  corroboration  of  the  reasonable- 
ness, the  revelation,  the  reverence  of  worship.  Accustom 
yourselves  to  her  benevolent  aspects.    Like  humanity  Nature 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  337 

has  cruelties  and  tyrannies,  but  also  benign  features  and  noble 
ministries  before  which  our  dissonances  shrink  abashed.  She 
has  inspired  the  predictions  of  prophets,  and  disturbed  with 
sacred  joy  the  thoughts  of  poets,  artists,  musicians,  who,  as 
we  have  seen,  are  the  coadjutors  of  Heaven's  ambassadors. 
The  significance  of  mountain  solitudes,  those  stainless  altars 
of  the  race;  the  silence  of  a  sleeping  wood  where  primeval 
peoples  first  knelt  to  pray ;  the  moving  waters  of  the  seas, 

".  .  .  at  their  priestlike  task 
Of  pure  ablution  round  Earth's  human  shores," 

make  specific  contributions  to  your  equipment  as  a  leader  of 
worship.  They  teach  you,  as  they  taught  the  men  of  olden 
time,  that  the  invisible  things  of  Him  Whom  you  represent 
"are  clearly  seen,  being  perceived  through  the  things  that 
are  made,  even  His  everlasting  power  and  Divinity. ' '  ^  Sub- 
jected to  the  lawful  rule  of  faith,  they  no  longer  intimidate 
you.  Spiritual  imagination  finds  in  them  a  leveling  of  dis- 
tinctions, while  at  the  same  time  they  elevate  the  whole  family 
in  heaven  and  earth  to  a  new  height  in  which  all  are  one. 

You  may  ask  what  Angel  of  the  Presence  is  sufficient  for 
the  task  imposed  upon  you  as  a  guide  to  those  who  worship  the 
King  Eternal.  But  you  can  be  something  more  than  angels 
for  the  purpose:  you  can  be  men  in  the  strength  and  after 
the  pattern  of  Him  Who  passed  by  the  nature  of  angels  that 
"He  might  lay  hold  on  the  seed  of  Abraham."  And  your 
manhood  as  a  Christian  preacher  can  follow  two  types, — ^the 
one  which  is  always  trying  with  might  and  main  to  be  good, 
according  to  approved  ordinances;  the  other,  doing  the  right 
without  overstrain  or  fear,  because  the  Spirit  of  God  is  with 
you  as  He  was  with  the  Master.  The  latter  type  is,  in  my 
judgment,  the  best  agent  of  religious  reconstruction.  In  it  the 
prophet  and  the  priest,  the  sermon  and  the  worship,  are  con- 
joined. Open-minded  and  charitable,  it  proclaims  Christ 
from  the  steps  of  the  altar  and  finds  the  tokens  of  His  Pres- 

2  Romans  i :  20. 


338  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

ence  in  the  devout  theism  of  the  Jew,  the  loyalty  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic,  the  inner  light  of  the  Friend,  the  independence 
of  the  Puritan,  the  zeal  of  the  Evangelical  and  the  research 
of  the  Christian  scholar.  All  these  things  contribute  to  wor- 
ship in  their  several  degrees  j  bringing  their  homage  and 
praise  to  the  Eternal  Christ,  and  where  He  is  there  is  the 
Church. 

In  its  truest  essence  worship  inspires  the  soul  to  offer  all  its 
activities  to  God,  and  for  this  conscious  self -surrender  He  has 
made  special  demands  and  created  special  provisions.  He 
permitted  each  past  generation  to  honor  Him  according  to  its 
strength,  and  gradually  transformed  and  raised  the  ideals  of 
the  nations,  making  use  even  of  inferior  and  fleeting  ideals 
in  His  government  of  mankind.  To  worship  the  Lord  in  the 
beauty  of  that  holiness  which  the  Scriptures  enjoin  and 
through  the  mediatorship  of  the  Divine  Christ  is  the  sacred 
privilege  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  only  homage  worthy 
of  believers.  The  men  and  women  of  Puritan  descent  in  whom 
the  strains  of  individualism  and  independency  run  deeply 
will  hardly  consent  to  march  beneath  banners  out  of  which 
the  colors  of  their  conviction  have  been  washed.  Contrite, 
confessional,  recipient,  enriched,  their  alternations  between 
self-abasement  and  holy  exaltation  invoke  the  assistance  of  the 
emotions  rather  than  the  senses,  and  not  infrequently  a  pro- 
found and  reasoned  belief  lies  behind  their  emotions.  They 
contend,  with  truth,  that  whatever  external  things  are  at 
the  disposal  of  worship,  its  development  depends  upon  the  in- 
ternal reign  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  spirits  of  men.  Few 
will  dispute  the  contention  or  deny  that  the  subtle  telepathies 
of  communion  are  hindered  by  ceremonies  which  drag  it  to 
the  lower  levels  of  formalism.  Nevertheless  you  are  justified 
in  enlisting  the  instrumentalities  which  ensphere  public  de- 
votion with  a  sacred  aura.  Behind  the  New  Testament  is  the 
community  of  believers  giving  to  God  that  ascription,  praise 
and  honor  which  not  even  the  greatest  of  saints  can  render 
by  himself;  and  behind  the  community  of  believers  is  the 


PREACHING  AND  WORSHIP  339 

Everlasting  Father  of  mankind,  Who  will  not  allow  you  to  be 
disappointed  in  your  approach  to  Him,  because  He  has  chosen 
you  to  do  His  own  work  in  the  world. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY 

This  list  is  limited  to  a  few  of  the  representative  volumes 
selected  from  an  extensive  literature. 

I.  On  the  History  and  Practice  op  Preaching 

Richard  Baxter:     The  Reformed  Pastor. 

H.  W.  Beecher:     Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching    (first,  second  and 

third  series). 
L.  0.  Brastow:     The  Modern  Pulpit. 
Phillips  Brooks:     Lectures  on  Preaching. 
W.  Boyd  Carpenter:     Lectures  on  Preaching. 
R.  W.  Dale:     Nine  Lectures  on  Preaching. 
E.  C.  Dargan:     A  History  of  Preaching,  2  volumes. 
J.  Oswald  Dykes:     The  Christian  Minister  and  His  Duties. 
Charles  S.  Gardner :     Psychology  and  Preaching. 
C.  Silvester  Home :     A  Popular  History  of  the  Free  Churches;  and, 

The  Romance  of  Preaching. 
A.  S,  Hoyt:     The  Work  of  Preaching. 
John  Ker:     Lectures  on  the  History  of  Preaching. 
Austin  Phelps:     The  Theory  of  Preaching. 
Matthew  Simpson:     Lectures  on  Preaching. 

C.  H.  Spurgeon:     Lectures  to  My  Students  (first  and  second  serieg). 
James  Stalker:     The  Preacher  and  His  Models. 
Jeremy  Taylor:     Liberty  of  Prophesying. 
W.  M.  Taylor:     The  Scottish  Pulpit. 
Principal  TuUoch:     The  Classic  Preachers  of  the  English  Church. 

II.  Sermons  and  Meditations 

The  Apostolic  Fathers  (Ante-Nieene  Fathers). 
Thomas  Arnold:     Sermons  preached  mostly  in  Rugby  Chapel. 
Augustine :     Homilies. 
Basil  of  Caesarea :     De  Spiritu  Sancto. 
H.  W.  Beecher:     Evolution  and  Religion. 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux:     Canticum  Canticorum. 
Thomas  Binney:     King's  Weigh  House  Chapel  Sermons. 
J.  B.  Bossuet:     Exposition  of  the  Catholic  Faith. 

341 


342  AMBASSADORS  OF  GOD 

Stopford  Brooke:     Old  Testament  and  Modern  Life. 

Phillips  Brooks:     The  Candle  of  the  Lord. 

John  Bunyan:     The  Jenisalem  Sinner  Saved  and  other  Sermons. 

Horace  Bushnell:     God  in  Christ. 

Bishop  Butler:  Human  Nature  and  Other  Sermons,  edited  by  Glad- 
stone. 

Edward  Caird:    Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses. 

John  Caird:     University  Addresses. 

Macleod  Campbell:     The  Nature  of  the  Atonement. 

Thomas  Chalmers:     Sermons  and  Discourses. 

W.  E.  Channing:     The  Perfect  Life. 

R.  W.  Church :     Cathedral  and  University  Sermons. 

Chrysostom:     Homilies    (Nieene  and  Post-Nicene  Fathers). 

Clement  of  Alexandria:  Exhortations  to  the  Heathen  (Ante-Nieent 
Fathers,  Vol  II). 

S.  T.  Coleridge:     Aids  to  Reflection. 

R.  W.  Dale :     Fellowship  with  Christ;  and,  Christian  Doctrine. 

A.  B.  Davidson:     Waiting  on  God. 

Jaanes  Denney :     The  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians. 

Henri  Didon:     Belief  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ. 

Marcus  Dods:     Christ  and  Man. 

John  Donne:     Sermons,  selected  by  L.  G.  Smith. 

Jonathan  Edwards:     The  Religious  Affections. 

Erskine  of  Linlathen:     The  Brazen  Serpent. 

A.  M.  Fairbaim:     The  City  of  God. 

F.  W.  Farrar:     Eternal  Hope. 

F.  S.  Fenelon:     Maxims  of  the  Saints. 

C.  G.  Finney:     Lectures  on  Revivals. 

Thomas  Fuller :     Collected  Sermons. 

Gregory  Nazianzen:     Five  Theological  Orations. 

F.  J.  A.  Hort:     Village  Sermons. 

J.  C.  Hare:     The  Mission  of  the  Comforter. 

Rowland  Hill:     Village  Dialogues. 

Ireneeus:     Against  Heresies   (Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Vol.  I). 

J.  Iverach:     The  Other  Side  of  Greatness. 

William  Jay:     Sermons  preached  at  Cambridge. 

Thomas  a  Kempis :     On  the  Imitation  of  Christ. 

Charles  Kingsley:     Twenty-five  Village  Sermons. 

J.  B.  H.  Lacordaire:     Conferences,  translated  by  Langdon. 

Hugh  Latimer:     Remains  and  Sermons. 

H.  P.  Liddon:     University  Sermons. 

Luther:  An  Address  to  the  Nobility  of  the  German  Nation;  The 
Babylonish  Captivity  of  the  Church;  The  Liberty  of  a  Christian 
Man. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  343 

Alexander  MaeLaren:     Sermons  preached  in  Manchester. 

James  Martineau:     Endeavors  after  the  Christia/n  Life,  2  volumes; 

and,  Hours  of  Thought. 
Justin    Martyr:     Dialogue    with    Trypho.     (Ante-Nicene    Fathers, 

Vol.  I.) 
J.  B.  Massillon:     Conferences. 
George  Matheson:     Sidelights  from  Patmos. 
F.  D.  Maurice:     Lincoln's  Inn  Sermons. 
Molinos:     The  Spiritual  Guide. 

Adolphe  Monod:     Five  Sermons  on  the  Apostle  Paul. 
J.  B.  Mozley :     Sermons  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford. 
Theodore  Munger:     The  Freedom  of  Faith. 
J.  H.  Newman :     Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons. 
Origen:     Against  Celsus  (Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Volume  IV). 
John  Owen:     Exercitations  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
J.  E.  Paget :     Sermons  for  Special  Occasions. 

E.  A.  Park:     Discourses  on  Some  Theological  Doctrines. 
Joseph  Parker:     City  Temple  Pulpit. 

Blaise  Pascal :     Pensees;  and,  The  Provincial  Letters. 

F.  W.  Robertson :     Sermons. 

F.  D.  E.  Schleiermacher :     Speeches  on  Religion,  edited  by  Oman. 

H.  Scott  Holland:     Logic  and  Life. 

T.  G.  Selby:     The  God  of  the  Frail. 

James  Smetham :     Letters. 

John  Smith,  the  Cambridge  Platonist:     Discourses. 

Philip  J.  Spener :     Pia  Desideria. 

Robert  Smith:     Sermons,  edited  by  Shedd. 

C.  H.  Spurgeon:     Sermons. 

A.  P.  Stanley:     Sermons  on  Special  Occasions. 

John  Tauler:     Conferences  and  Sermons. 

Connop  Thirlwall:     Sermons,  edited  by  Perowne. 

John  Tillotson:     Sermons,  edited  by  Birch. 

S.  A.  Tipple:     Sunday  Mornings  at  Norwood. 

R.  C.  Trench:     Sermons  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

John  Watson :     The  Inspiration  of  Our  Faith. 

John  Wesley:     Sermons. 

Brooke  Foss  Westcott :     The  Incarnation  and  Common  Life. 

Benjamin  Wbichcote:     Select  Sermons. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  118,  281  f. 

Activism,  186. 

Adams,  Henry,  147  f,  321. 

Addams,  Jane,  118. 

.(Eschylus,  142. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  102. 

Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  81. 

Allon-,  Henry,  325. 

Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan,  63. 

American  clergy,  116,  326. 

Anarchism,  109,  114,  149. 

Andrewes,  Lancelot,  63. 

Anglican  Church,  63,  71,  111,  207, 

210  f,  213,  325. 
Anglo-Catholics,  71,  210. 
Anglo-Saxon,  117. 
Anthusa,  50. 
Antony  of  Padua,  56. 
Apocalypse,  the,  41. 
Apocalyptic  writings,  21. 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  56,  281. 
Aristides,  239. 
Aristotle,  130,  185. 
Arius,  50,  333. 
Arminianism,  73. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  65,  108,  120,  178, 

249,  257,  306,  323. 
Arnold,  Thomas,  73,  280. 
Arthur,  William,  242. 
Asquith,  H.  H.,  196. 
Athanasius,  49. 

Atterbury,  Bishop  Francis,  65. 
Augustine,  the  missionary,  54. 
Augustine,  St.,  22,  51  flF,  66,  333. 
Aurelius,  Marcus,  191,  239. 
Authority  and  freedom,  151. 

Bach,  Johann  S.,  325. 

Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  48,   111,  205, 

256,  257. 
Bacon,  Roger,  172. 
Bagehot,  Walter,  204,  290. 
Bakewell,  John,  68. 
Balzac,  Honor^  de,  257. 


Baptism,  168. 

Baptismal  regeneration,  20&. 

Baptist  denomination,  213. 

Barlow,  Jane,  218. 

Barnett,  Canon  and  Mrs.  Somutl 

A.,  118. 
Barrow,  Isaac,  64. 
Basil  of  Csesarea,  50,  264. 
Basil  the  Great,  50,  242. 
Bautain,  Abbe,  260. 
Baxter,  Richard,  65,  248. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  77,  78,  80  f, 

87,  116,  242,  281,  289,  304,  330, 

335. 
Beecher,  Lyman,  72,  77,  78,  116. 
Beet,  Joseph  Agar,  256. 
Beethoven,  Ludwig  van,  325,  336. 
Behrends,  A.  J.  F.,  89. 
Bellamy,  Edward,  110. 
Bengel,  Johann  A.,  62. 
Bergson,  Henri,  181  flF,  185. 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  55  f,  59,  325. 
Bcrthold  of  Regensburg,  56. 
Bible,     criticism     and,     8  AT,     101, 

250  flf;    revelation    in,    207,    302, 

304;  preacher  and,  250  AT;  public 

reading  of,  336 ;  translations  of, 

304. 
Binney,  Thomas,  87,  306. 
Blake,  William,  70,  248,  291. 
Boehme,  Jakob,  248. 
Bonaventura,  Francis,  56. 
Boniface,  missionary  bishop,  54. 
Books,  254  S. 

Booth,  General  William,  118,  327. 
Booth,  Mrs.  Catherine,  1 18,  323. 
Borromeo,  Carlo,  60. 
Bossuet,  J.  B.,  62. 
Bourdaloue,  Louis,  62. 
Bradford,  John  H.,  60. 
Bradwardine,  Thomas,  66. 
Braithwaite,  William  C,  163. 
Bridge,  Sir  Frederick,  324. 
Bri«rley,  J.,  261  n. 
345 


346 


INDEX 


Brigkt,  Jolin,  8«,  1J4,  898. 

BrisBot,  Jean  Pierre,  109. 

British  preachers,  326. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  77,  81  f,  324. 

Brown,  Francis,  13. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  196,  303. 

Browning,    Robert,    69,    174,    267, 

258,  281,  284,  325,  335. 
Bryennios,  208  ». 
Bruce,  A.  B.,  256. 
Buchner,  F.  C.  C.  L.,  106, 
Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  134. 
Buck,  Dudley,  335. 
Buckland,  William,  102. 
Budde,  Karl  F.  R.,  13. 
Bullinger,  Heinrich,  60. 
Bunting,  Jabez,  87. 
Bunyan,  John,  61,  65,  87,  197,  223, 

248,  265,  301  f. 
Burke,  Edmund,  64,  205,  231,  257, 

258,  290. 
Bury,  Richard  of,  257. 
Bushnell,  Horace,  77,  79. 
Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  66,  67. 
Butler,  Mrs.  Josephine,  118. 
Butler,  Samuel,  219. 

Caine,  Hall,  323. 

Caird,  Edward,  258. 

Caird,  John,  88. 

Gairns,  John,  88. 

Calamy,  Edmund,  65. 

Calder6n  de  la  Barca,  257. 

Callimachus,  259. 

Calvin,  John,  23,  59  f,  77,  206. 

Calvinism,  67,  73,  109. 

Cameron,  James  Robertson,  40. 

Campanella,  Tommaso,  110, 

Campbell,  McLeod,  88. 

Carlyle,   Thomas,    114  f,   171,    196, 

332. 
Carr,  H,  Wildon,  184  n. 
Catholicism,  Roman,  153,  156,  207, 

213,  338. 
Cato,  239. 

Cervantes,  Miguel  de,  197. 
Chalmers,  James,  89. 
Chalmers,  Thomas,  83,  262,  300. 
Channing,  William  Ellery,  77,  78. 


Chapman,  George,  304. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  304. 

Cheyne,  T.  K.,  13. 

Chillingworth,  William,  64. 

Christian  Science,  143. 

Christianity,  99,  134,  173,  176, 
187  f,  217. 

Christology  of  New  Testament, 
39flF. 

Chrysostom,  22,  50  f,  256,  273,  333. 

Church,  the,  76,  124;  indifference 
to,  139  ff;  the  State  and,  152; 
catholicity  of,  153;  worship  and, 
314,  327;  divisions  of,  152;  doc- 
trine of,  154,  211;  priesthood  of, 
160;  mission  of,  161;  social 
questions  and,  116  ff. 

Church,  Dean  R.  W.,  227. 

Cicero,  256,  304. 

Civil  War,  the,  116  f. 

aarke,  W.  N.,  256. 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  114. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  208  n,  332. 

Clodd,  Edward,  106. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  178. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  72,  73, 
284. 

Collectivism,  150. 

Columba,  54. 

Common  Prayer,  Book  of,  325,  330. 

Congregationalists,  213,  325. 

Conrad  the  Emperor,  56. 

Consubstantiation,   159. 

Conversion,  220,  278  f. 

Corneille,  Pierre,  257. 

Cranmer,  Thomas,  60. 

Creeds,  176,  228. 

Crusades,  321. 

Cudworth,  Ralph,  64. 

Cyprian,  49,  51,  208. 

Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  49. 

Dale,  Robert  W.,  83,  85  f,  114,  258, 

275,  285,  334. 
D'Alembert,  Jean  LeR.,  304. 
Dante,  22,  197,  227,  251,  257,  258. 
Danton,  Georges  J.,  55. 
Darwin,   Charles,   100,   103  ff,   191, 

284,  290. 


INDEX 


347 


D'Aubigne,  Jean  H.  M.,  77. 
David,  King  of  Israel,  215. 
Davidson,  A.  B.,  13,  17. 
Davison,  W.  T.,  13,  25,   151,  176, 

242. 
Defoe,  Daniel,  303. 
Deism,  53,  66,  70. 
Delitzsch,  Franz,   13. 
Delivery,  304  f. 
Democracy,  123  ff. 
Demosthenes,  304. 
Denney,  James,  43,  256. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  255. 
DeWette,  Wilhelm  M.  L.,  13. 
Dickens,  Charles,  82. 
Didache,  208. 
Didon,  Jean.  Henri,  77. 
Dill,  Sir  Samuel,  255. 
Dion  of  Prusa,  50, 
Dobschiitz,  Ernst  von,  240. 
Dods,  Marcus,  256,  307  n. 
Dogma,  227  f. 
Dolling,  Father,  118. 
Domenico,  Fra,  59. 
Dominican  Order,  56. 
Donatists,  333. 
Dostoevsky,  Fiodor  M.,  253. 
Dramatists,  137,  280. 
Driver,  S.  R.,  13. 
Dryden,  John,  304. 
Duff,  Alexander,  89. 
Dupanloup  Felix  A.  P.,  77. 
Durbin,  John  P.,  80. 

Ecclesiastes,  296. 
Economic  theories,  119  ff. 
Education,  religious,  145  f . 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  70,  204,  259, 

274. 
Einhorn,  David,  15. 
Eliot,  George,  58,  136,  257,  287. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  255  f ,  300. 
Encyclopedists,  63. 
Engels,  Friedrich,  109. 
Epictetus,  239,  257. 
Episcopate,  the  historic,  207  flf. 
Erskine,  Ebenezer,  71. 
Ethical  teaching,  139,  216  f. 
Eucharist,  the,  158  ff,  209. 


Eucken,  Rudolf,  181,  184  ff. 
Eumenides,  142. 
Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  48,  49. 
Evangelicalism,    68,    72,    73,    211, 

222,  251,  276,  338. 
Evangelical  Revival,  68,  71,  114. 
Evangelism,  221,  277  f. 
Evolution,  104  ff,  177. 
Ewald,  Georg  H.  A.,  13. 
Experience,  Christian,  222  ff. 
Ezekiel,  161. 

Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  88. 

Faith,  97,  220,  255,  266,  26i,  279, 

290,  316. 
Fanaticism,  163. 
Faraday,  Michael,  218. 
Fellowship,  313  ff. 
Fenelon,  Frangois  de  S.,  62. 
Fichte,  Johann  G.,  185. 
Finney,  Charles  G.,  77,  79,  277. 
Fiske,  John,  184  n. 
Flagellants,  200. 
Foch,  Marshal  Ferdinand,  243. 
Foster,  Frank  H.,  183. 
Foster,  John,  305. 
Foster,  Bishop  Randolph  S.,  79. 
Fourier,  Francois  C.  M.,  110. 
Fox,  Charles  J.,  205. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  56,  59,  204. 
Franciscan  Order,  56. 
Francke,  August  H.,  62. 
Fraticelli,  56. 

Freedom  and  authority,  151. 
Friends,  the,  213,  325,  338. 
French  Revolution,  123. 

Gallua,  the  missionary,  64. 
Garrick,  David,  69. 
Geiger,  Abraham,    15. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  290,  816. 
Gilfillan,  George,  83. 
Gladden,  Washington,  118. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  124,  190,  304. 
Goethe,  Johann  W.  von,  174,  185, 

203,  246,  257,  290. 
Gospel,  the,  38. 
Gospel,  the  Fourth,  39. 
Qnosticism,  34. 


348 


INDEX 


Goldsmith,  Oliver,  203. 
Goodwin,  John,  65,  242. 
Gore,  Bishop  Charles,  209. 
Grant,  General  U.  S.,  306. 
Gray,  Thomas,  190. 
Gravitation,  104. 
Green,  John  Richard,  67. 
Gregory  the  Great,  54. 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  50. 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  50. 
Guthrie,  Thomas,  88. 
Gwatkin,  H.  M.,  209. 

Haeckel,  Ernst,  106. 
Hall,  Robert,  83,  262. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  290. 
Hamilton,  Patrick,  60. 
Handel,  Georg  F.,  324. 
Hardy,  Thomas,  189,  284. 
Hare,  Julius  Charles,  242. 
Harrison,  Frederic,  257. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  287. 
Hazlitt,  William,  136,  303. 
Hebrews,  Epistle  to  the,  33  f,  41, 

192. 
Hegel,  Georg  W.  F.,  184  »,  185,  197, 

241. 
Henry  of  Lausanne,  55. 
Henson,  Bishop  H.  Hensley,  210. 
Herbert,  George,  248. 
Herder,  Johaim  G.  von,  71. 
Hildebrand,  55. 
Hirsch,   Samuel,   15. 
Holdheim,  S.,  15. 
Holmes,  0.  W.,  256,  300. 
Holy  Spirit,  the,  33,  41,  145,  153, 

164,  170,  217  f,  237  ff,  278,  314, 

338. 
Homer,  251,  302. 
Hooker,  Richard,  63,  72,  227. 
Hoover,  Herbert,  110. 
Home,  C.  Silvester,  277. 
Hort,  F.  J.  A.,  34  n,  42  n,  209. 
Hosea,  28. 
Howe,  John,  65. 
Hiigel,  Friedrich  Baron  von,  242, 

256. 
Hughes,  Hugh  Price,  88,  118,  198, 

277,  323. 


Hugo  of  St.  Victor,  55. 

Hume,  David,  70. 

Hus,  John,  58,  59. 

Huxley,  Thomas  H.,  103,  106,  181, 

302. 
Hyacinthe,  P&re,  77. 
Hymns,  333  ff. 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  253. 

Idealism,  186,  199,  239. 

Idealists,  182,  188. 

Ignatius,  208. 

lUingworth,  J.  R.,  242,  266. 

Imagination,  the,  287  ff. 

Imitation,   300  f. 

Immortality,  144. 

Incarnation,  the,   33  f,  180,    157  f, 

178,  211,  269,  326. 
Individualism,  131,  149,  163,  186, 

338. 
Industrial  problems,  113  ff. 
Inge,  W.  R.,  248. 
Intellectualism,   131,   167  ff,   172  f, 

198. 
Irving,  Edward,  87. 
Isaiah,  28. 

Jacks,  L.  P.,  178. 

Jacques  de  Vitry,  55. 

James,  St.,  41. 

James,  John  Angell,  87. 

James,  William,  188,  266. 

Japan,  327. 

Jay,  William,  87. 

Jefferson,  Charles  E.,  256. 

Jeremiah,  28. 

Jesus  Christ,  teaching  of,  28  ff, 
294;  Person  of,  29  ff,  74  f,  90, 
199,  338;  preaching  of,  37;  in- 
dispensableness    of,    125  f,    173, 

179,  223;  mediatorship  of,  318  f; 
sovereignty  of,  192,  229;  attrac- 
tion of,  285;  Lordship  of,  199, 
217,  266. 

Jew,  the,  214,  338. 
Jewel,  John,  60. 
Job,  214. 

John  of  Jandun,  57. 
John,  St.,  36,  39  ff. 


INDEX 


349 


Jones,  Sir  Henry,  256. 
Joseph,  Oscar  L.,  147. 
Joubert,  Joseph,  23&,  294. 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  253,  283. 
Judaism,  213. 
Judson,  Edward,  118. 
Justice,  151. 

Justification  by  faith,  42,  60,  68, 
67  f,  71,  220. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  70,  74,  185,  186, 

241,  259,  319. 
Keats,  John,  257. 
Keeble,  Samuel,  118. 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  248. 
Ken,  Bishop  Thomas,  65. 
Kingdom  of  God,  7,  27  f,  101,  156. 
Kingsley,  Charles,   116. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  253. 
Knox,  John,  60  f,  83. 
Kohler,  K.,  15. 
Koran,  the,  253. 
Krummacher,  Friedrich  A.,  76. 
Kuenen,  Abraham,  13. 
Kuyper,  Abraham,  242. 

Lacordaire,  J.  B.  H.,  77. 

Lamaism,  155. 

Lamb,  Charles,  247,  303. 

Language,  298  f. 

Latimer,  Hugh,  60  f,  87. 

Lavater,  J.  K.,  71. 

Law,  William,  248. 

Leadership,  124. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  67,  266. 

Leo  the  Great,  54. 

Liddon,  H.  P.,  83,  87. 

Lightfoot,  Bishop  J.  B.,  34  n,  208, 

209. 
Lincoln,    Abraham,    82,    124,    257, 

290,  302. 
Lincoln  Cathedral,  325. 
Liturgy,  330. 
Livingstone,  David,  89. 
Logic,   296. 
Lollards,  333. 

Lord's  Supper,  the,  158  ff,  209,  314. 
Lucretius,  103,  237. 
Luiz  of  Grenada,  60. 


Luthardt,  Christoph  E.,  76. 
Luther,   Martin,  23,   57,   59  f,   66, 

153,  221,  333. 
Lutheranism,  109,  213. 
Luzzatto,  S.  D.,  15. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  114,  260. 
MacLaren,  Alexander,  83,  87,  273. 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  189. 
Magee,  Archbishop  W.  C,  87. 
Mallock,  W.  H.,  118. 
Manicheism,  131. 
Manning,   Cardinal  Henry  E.,  88, 

118. 
Marheineke,  P.  K.,  76. 
Marshall,  John,   124. 
Marsiglio  de  Mainardino,  57,  59, 
Marsilius  of  Padua,  57  n. 
Martineau,  Harriet,  250. 
Martineau,  James,  11,  68,  73,  88, 

198,  248,  257. 
Martyn,  Henry,  204. 
Martyr,  Justin,  49,  239. 
Marvin,  Bishop  Enoch  M.,  80. 
Marx,  Karl,  109. 
Mass,  the,  159. 
Massillon,  J.  B.,  62,  71. 
Materialism,  138,  143,  324. 
Matheson,  George,  88,  330. 
Maurice,  Frederick  D.,  88,  116. 
Mazzini,  Giuseppe,  124,  148. 
McCheyne,  Murray,  88. 
McClintock,  John,  79. 
McConnell,  Bishop  Francis  J.,  266. 
Melanchthon,  Philip,  60. 
Meletius,  Bishop,  50. 
Melville,  Henry,  277. 
Mental  healing,  143. 
Meredith,  George,  267. 
Messianism,  Jewish,  32. 
Methodism,  213,  312,  333. 
Micah,  20. 
Michel  Angelo,  55. 
Mill,  James,  189. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  118,  124,  197. 
Milman,  Dean  Henry  H.,  73. 
Milton,   John,   64,   81,   215  n,   237, 

251,  257,  290,  299,  302,  303,  320. 
Mind,  the  modern,  170  ff,  177. 


350 


INDEX 


Ministry,  the,  Nature  and  ideals 
of,  202  flF;  credentials  of,  212; 
educational,  220,  281;  evangelis- 
tic, 220  f . 

Miraculous,  the,  174. 

Misanthrope,  the,  130. 

Moberly,  Robert  C,  209. 

Moflfatt,  Robert,  89. 

Monica,  53. 

Monks,  Gilbert,  261  n. 

Monod,  Adolphe,  77. 

Montaigne,  Michel  E.  de,  195,  257. 

Montefiore,  Claude  G,  15. 

Moody,  Dwight  L.,  277. 

Moore,  George,  253. 

Moore,  George  F.,  16. 

Moravians,  the,  71,  74. 

Morley,  Viscount  John,  66,  190  f, 
299. 

Mormonism,  145,  163. 

Morrison,  Robert,  89. 

Mosheim,  Johann  L.  von,  62. 

Mozart,  Wolfgang  A.,  324. 

Mozley,  J.  B.,  83. 

Muller,  Julius,  76. 

Murillo,  Bartolome  E.,  195. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  218. 

Napoleon,  292. 

Nationalism,  155. 

Naturalism,  186. 

Nature  and  Revelation,  175. 

Negativism,  147,  175,  180. 

Nemesis,  142. 

New  Thought,  143. 

Nevyman,  Cardinal  John  Henry,  42, 

50,  83  f,  86,  171,  221,  253,  257. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  103,  290. 
New  Testament,  the,    14,  22,   126, 

135;   religion  of,   112;   the  only 

criterion  of,  129. 
Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  189. 
Nitzsch,  Karl  I.,  76. 
Novelists,  136  fiF. 

Old   Testament,   the,   6  flF,    17,   21; 

permanent  value  of,  26  flF. 
Olivers,  Thomas,  68. 
Origen,  49,  51. 


Orr,  James,  242. 
Osborn,  George,  336. 
Owen,  John,  65,  242. 
Owen,  Richard,  102. 
Owen,  Robert,  110. 

Papal  infallibility,  208. 

Parker,  Joseph,  88,  273,  330. 

Parsons,  James,  87. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  62,  77,  206,  257, 
263. 

Pastor,  the,  spirit  of,  229  f,  296, 
328  flF;  preaching  of,  229  f; 
prayer  of,  328  flF. 

Patrick,  St.,  54. 

Paul,  St.,  36,  40  f,  43,  206,  214, 
221,  259,  265,  277,  322. 

Peahody,  Francis  G.,  118. 

Peake,  A.  S.,  13,  27. 

Perronet,  Edward,  68. 

Pessimism,   180,   189  flF. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  55. 

Peter,  St.,  37,  41. 

Phelps,  William  Lyon,  253. 

Philosophy,  105,  179  flF,  185. 

Piagnoni,  58. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  65. 

Pitt,  William,  the  Elder,  204,  304. 

Pitt,  William,  204. 

Plato,  8,  74,  110,  185,  239,  245, 
255,   257. 

Pliny  the  Younger,  304. 

Plotinus,  185,  248  f. 

Plutarch,  256. 

Potter,  Bishop  Henry  C,  133. 

Poverty  and  wealth,  97,  121. 

Pragmatism,  186,  188  f. 

Praise,  332  f. 

Prayer,  247  f,  278,  316,  328  flF. 

Premillenarianism,  32. 

Preacher,  the,  personality  of,  212  flF, 
266,  306;  fully  equipped,  243; 
preparation  of,  237  ff;  economic 
theories  and,  119  flF;  Bible  and, 
250  flF. 

Preaching,  various  conceptions  of, 
1  flF;  influence  of,  47  flF,  89;  types 
of,  90 ;  Reformation,  59  f ;  golden 
age  of,  49;  causes  of  decline  in. 


INDEX 


351 


9S5;  variety  in,  L84f;  per- 
spective in,  153;  modern  attitude 
toward,  95  ff ;  function  of,  121  if; 
Cross  currents'  which  affect, 
129  ff;  Present  day  intellectual- 
ism  and,  167  ff;  spiritual  inter- 
pretation in,  151 ;  culture  and, 
194  ff;  worship  and,  311  ff; 
makeshift,  132;  sensational,  138, 
294;  evangelistic,  275  ff;  evan- 
gelical, 267;  effective,  68,  175, 
215  ff;  ineffective,  217  f,  226;  ex- 
temporaneous, 262  f;  didactic, 
173  ff,  193,  279,  282;  ethical, 
267  f ;  expository,  274  f ;  instruc- 
tional, 193,  228;  doctrinal, 
226  ff;  pastoral,  229  f;  soul  of 
genuine,  267. 

Press,  secular,  132. 

Priesthood  of  believers,  160. 

Priest  and  prophet,  161. 

Prometheus,  189. 

Prophets    of    the    Old    Testajnent, 
15  ff. 

Protestantism,  149,   151,  153,   154, 
158,  207,  209,  274,  320,  323,  335. 

Proudhon,  Pierre  J.,  109. 

Psalmists,  23  ff,  333. 

Psalter,  the,  24  f. 

Psychology,  174,  280. 

Purcell,  Henry,  324, 

Puritanism,  65,  70,  163,  158,  212, 
321,  338. 

Pusey,  Edward  B.,  83,  253. 

Quintilian,  304. 

Rainy,  Robert,  89. 

Rationalism,  98,  180,  188. 

Rauschenbusch,  Walter,  118. 

Reade,  Charles,  321. 

Realists,  182. 

Reason,  the,  177. 

Reformation,   the,  69  fT,   131,   178, 

196,  206. 
Regeneration,     112,     120  f,     132  f, 

216. 
Reinach,  Salomon,  110. 
Rembrandt,  330. 


Reinhard,  Franz  V.,  62. 
Religion,  66,  172,  186. 
Renaissance,  the,  60,  197. 
Renan,  Ernest,  191. 
Retribution,  142. 
Revelation,  104,  175. 
Reverence,  318. 
Revivals,  63,  68,  320. 
Revolution,  social  and  industrial, 

107  ff. 
Rhetoric,  296. 
Ricardo,  David,  109. 
Richard  of  St.  Victor,  65. 
Ridley,  Nicholas,  60. 
Rieger,  Georg  K.,  62. 
Ritschlianism,  76. 
Robertson,  F.  W.,  83,  85,  258,  284. 
Robertson  Smith,  W.,  13,  17. 
Robinson,  Crabb,  325. 
Rogers,  Robert  W.,  13. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  124. 
Rose,  Hugh,  306. 
Rothe,  Richard,  76. 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  284. 
Ruskin,  John,  115,  257,  335. 
Russell,  Bertrand,  190. 
Ruysdael,  Salomon,  330, 
Ryan,  John  A.,  118. 

Sabatier,  Auguste,  256. 
Sacerdotalism,  72,  98,  321. 
Pacramentarianism,   158,  210. 
Saint  Chapelle,  325. 
Saint  Simon,  109. 
Salisbury  Cathedral,  325. 
Salvation  Army,  the,  323. 
Saracens,  315. 
Savonarola,  22,  58  f,  315. 
Savoy  Conference,  the,  65. 
Schecter,  S.,  15. 
Schelling,  F.  W.  J.  von,  74,  185. 
Schiller,  Ferdinand  C,  188. 
Schiller,  Johann  C.  F.  von,  185. 
Schlegel,  Wilhelm,  304. 
Schleiermacher,    Friedrich    E.    D., 

28,  73  ff,  76,  241. 
Scholasticism,  59,  198. 
Science,  104  f,  167,  175,  177  ff. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  322. 


352 


INDEX 


Sectarianism,    153  f. 

Selby,  T.  G.,  138. 

Sensationalism,  138,  248,  294. 

Sentimentalism,   141. 

Sermons,  technique  and  delivery  of, 

261  ff;     three    classes    of,    273; 

style  of,  297  f. 
Shairp,  John  C,  84. 
Shakespeare,    214,    247,    251,    257, 

284,  302. 
Shelley,  Percy  B.,  177,  258,  289. 
Shelley,  Dr.  Harry  R.,  335. 
Simeon,  Charles,  87,  277. 
Simpson,  Canon  J.  G.,  64. 
Simpson,  Bishop  Matthew,  77,  79  f . 
Sistine  Madonna,  325. 
Smith,  Adam,  118. 
Smith,  Sir  George  Adam,  13,  21. 
Smith,  Gipsy,  245. 
Smith,  John,  317. 
Smyth,  Newman,  210  n. 
Social  tendencies,  modern,  125. 
Socialism,  109  f,  115,  186. 
Socialism,  Christian,  116. 
Social  reform,  107  S. 
Socrates,  239. 
Sophocles,  302. 
Solomon,  King  of  Israel,  139. 
South,  Robert,  64,  244. 
Spencer,    Herbert,    106,    179,    180, 

184,  191  ». 
Spener,  Philipp  J.,  62. 
Spinoza,  Baruch,  12,  74,  241. 
Spiritualism,  143  f. 
Spirituality,  119,  143. 
Spurgeon,  Charles  H.,  83,  86,  204, 

273,  277. 
State  and  Church,  152. 
St.  Gudulph's,  325. 
Stephenson,  T.  Bowman,  263. 
Sterling,  Hutchinson,  184  n. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  303. 
Storrs,  Richard  S.,  89. 
Streeter,  B.  H.,  242. 
Strindberg,  August,  189. 
Style,  297  f. 
Superstition,   144. 
Swete,  H.  B.,  209,  210  n,  242. 
Symbolism,  157  f,  312,  322. 


Syriac  Pethito,  208. 

Tagore,  Sir  Rabindranath,  146. 
Talleyrand,  Charles  Maurice,  Diike 

de,  123. 
Tauler,  John,  248. 
Taylor,  Graham,  118. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  64. 
Taylor,  William  M.,  89. 
Temple,  Archbishop  F.,  306. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,   178,  190, 

258,  283,  284. 
Tertullian,  49,  51. 
Texts,  choice  of,  264  f. 
Theater,  the,  280. 
Theodosius,  53  ». 
Theology,     75,     105,     161  ff,     174, 

224  ff. 
Theosophy,   142. 
Thirlwall,  Bishop  Newell  Connop, 

73. 
Tholuck,  F.  A.  G.,  76. 
Thomas  of  Villanova,  60. 
Thompson,  William  F.,  249. 
Tillotson,  Archbishop  John,  63,  66. 
Timothy,  214. 

Tocqueville,  A.  C.  H.  M.  C.  de,  124. 
Tolstoy,  Count  Leo,  189,  253. 
Tractarians,  the,  108,  207. 
Traditionalism,  210,  246. 
Transubstantiation,  159. 
Trinitarianism,  17. 
Tulloch,  John,  88,  209. 
Tynan,  Katherine,  144. 

Ulfilas,  50. 

Ullman,  Karl,  76. 

Unbeliever,  131. 

Unemotional  individual,  the,  130. 

Unitarianism,  79,  82,  213. 

Unity  of  Churches,  152  ff. 

Urban  II,  55. 

Utica,  307. 


Vaughan,  Henry,  248,  249. 
Vinet,  Alexander  R.,  77. 
Vitalism,  181. 
Voltaire,  304. 


INDEX 


353 


Walker,  W.  L.,  242,  256. 
Walker,  Williston,  210  n. 
Wallace,  Alfred  Russel,  103. 
Walpole,  Horace,  205,  231. 
Ward,  Harry  F.,  118. 
Waterland,  Daniel,  72. 
Watkinson,  W.  L.,  69,  258. 
Watson,  Richard,  87. 
Watts,  Isaac,  65, 
Wealth  and  poverty,  97. 
Webb,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sidney,  118. 
Welldon,  Dean,  336. 
Wellhausen,  Julius,  13. 
Wells,  H.  G.,  136,  253. 
Wesley,  Charles,  68,  277. 
Wesley,  John,  57,  66  ff,  71,  73,  79, 

114,  221,  244,  277. 
Westcott,  Bishop  B.  F.,  88,  192. 
Whately,  Archbishop  Richard,  73. 
Whitefield,  George,  68  ff,  277,  305, 
Wilberforce,  Bishop  Samuel,  87. 


Wilberforce,  William,  114. 
Wild,  John,  60. 
Wilfrid,  54. 

Willard,  Frances  E.,  118. 
Wilson,  Bishop  Alpheus  W.,  80. 
Winchester,  Caleb  T.,  288. 
Winchester  Cathedral,  285. 
Wise,  Isaac  M.,  15. 
Wishart,  George,  60, 
Wodehouse,  E.  A.,  168. 
Woolman,  John,  248. 
Wordsworth,    William,    257,    258, 

284,  290,  303,  320. 
Workman,  H.  B.,  256. 
Worship,  preaching  and,  311  ff. 
Wycliffe,  John,  22,  57  f,  5». 


Zinzendorf,       Nikolaus 

Count  von,  71, 
Zundel,  335. 
Zwingli,  Ulrich,  80. 


Ludwlg, 


PBnmtD  IN    TBS   tTNITID   8TATX8    OT   AUSBIOA 


